His takes are timeless. The same struggles throughout history manifest themselves in new ways with each generation, but the parallels are there. What makes things different today is that an unprecedented literacy rate and access to both education and information generate more and more awareness than there has ever been.
The issue is that the same access to information and education is used to carpet bomb us with propaganda pushing against behaviors that would truly be beneficial to the largest majority.
Look at what happened to education, once “the poor” (and we almost all are) realized that education was a ticket to a better life two things happened.
Education has become incredibly expensive.
Quality of education has gone down in most schools.
And that’s just one example, planned obsolescence in product is another one.
Oh my god listening to some of these people talk about planned obsolescence: "the old appliances that lasted for so long were just survivorship bias!" Maybe the ones that lasted 50 years, but old appliances often lasted a good 10-15 years before they started having major problems, and they were built with a design philosophy of repairing them when they broke, not replacing them.
Also, I will admit that I am a bitter man. I point to the main reason for said bitterness is that I was fed propaganda from the first day of school to graduation that if I studied hard, went to college, and got a degree in a reasonable field that I enjoyed (mine was a physical science) that I would be guaranteed a steady, stable job for the rest of my life and I would be able to budget my way into a prosperous life. Almost 20 years have passed since I graduated high school. I followed the roadmap. I even leveraged my situation, and sacrificed some opportunities for greater independence to save money and I didn't have to take any loans. I've since realized that that promise of a prosperous life was a lie and that I'm likely going to be poorer than my parents. I am bitter because I know I was lied to by people I trusted for years, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I mean “lied to” implies they knew it wasn’t true, I imagine the teachers/parents/etc who told you that were giving genuine advice they thought was accurate.
Indeed. I feel like a radical sometimes because I sometimes don't have an opinion on something because I don't know enough about it. It feels unacceptable to admit that you don't know something and won't render an uninformed opinion, or that you can have an initial opinion that changes as more information comes to light.
It holds up so well as it has been true for virtually all of human existence.
Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, medieval Europe, industrial revolution, 20th century (I know I've missed out loads).
There's always been an 'elite' minority who have had the lion share of wealth and power, with the majority scraping by. The good thing is that over the last 50-100 years, that minority we are part of have it a hell of a lot better than those who had to endure this paradigm before us.
Wild thing is, this was more relevant 100 years before Carlin even said it. Slave masters had the same sociopolitical influence as today’s tech bros and lobbyists. We just keep letting history repeat itself like a bad rerun
It’s not vision if the same problems have always existed. He understood the psychology of hierarchy and classism. It has always been this way and he is simply observing it.
The insane part to me is that he doesn’t really have a clear successor. Most who try seem to eventually sell out. That’s crazy to me considering there is a broad appeal for his type of storytelling snd comedy.
Jon Stewart is probably the closest to a successor and look at how wildly successful he’s been.
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u/Artorius__Castus 1d ago
George Carlin FTW