I recall reading someone's musing back in 2020, probably on Hacker
News, in one of the COVID-19 pandemic discussion threads, something
along the lines of "imagine that 2020 is actually the best year of the
following decade". Sounded like an odd thought, and I probably
wouldn't recall it later if it didn't seem to play out that way a
couple of years later.
I think they had in mind a worsening pandemic, then economic issues
following it, the stock market bubble bursting, and so on. Those did
happen, but additionally, and in Russia in particular, there's just a
continuous stream of worsening news. Well, perhaps it started in 2012,
or in 2000, or some find its causes in the early 1990s (the failure or
unwillingness to set proper democratic institutions), or the Soviet
times (leading to the early 1990s). I guess one can also blame the
monarchy before that, for leading to that. Or just stupidity in
general, and not any point(s) in history. But it did intensify this
year.
One may hope that eventually it'll bounce off the bottom, but so far
new lows are being explored. Or perhaps repeated after others, but
in another place and with newer technologies.
I suppose living through--and observing--this helps to better
understand some historical periods, dystopian novels, and places which
fell into similar regimes earlier. Actually some of the parallels (in
speeches, actions, explanations) are surprisingly close, as if
borrowed directly. That makes it easier to see how the same situations
can be perceived quite differently (though it was fairly clear before
too): life around here before the war looks fine from this point of
time. Hopefully in the future 2022 won't look like a comparatively
good year.
