[HN Gopher] Why is everything so ugly?
___________________________________________________________________
Why is everything so ugly?
Author : lucabenazzi
Score : 129 points
Date : 2024-01-21 11:46 UTC (11 hours ago)
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| Avicebron wrote:
| As much as I claim to like brutalitism as a design philosophy, I
| do think we could bring back some things like classic marble
| architecture. Maybe some new fountains
| ekianjo wrote:
| there is no money for that anymore
| user_7832 wrote:
| Perhaps brutalism is common where you live, but here in the
| Netherlands I would love to see more brutalist architecture as
| it is at the very least _distinct_. All houses here are
| (legally mandated almost) to have the same brick brown color.
| braza wrote:
| I see it in another way: in the past aesthetics and the
| richness in the detail was beloved to connected with the divine
| and sublime, and in a more contemporary times is related
| something more experimental.
|
| However, in the modern world with set of regulations plus
| complexities with urban places, and cost of build is not viable
| to have such so great ornaments around.
|
| For instance: one of most recognised and awarded architects had
| a lot of criticism[1] due to a new set requirements for urban
| life.
|
| [1] - https://foreignpolicy.com/slideshow/the-dark-side-of-
| oscar-n...
| juggertao wrote:
| Classic marble architecture is considered racist and white
| supremacy adjacent these days.
|
| https://intersectionist.medium.com/american-power-structures...
|
| https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/11/how-classical-...
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Classic marble architecture is considered racist and white
| supremacy adjacent these days.
|
| Probably by some insane woke ultra-leftists. Romans had white
| marbles. Romans also had black emperors, from Africa (yes,
| really).
|
| You have to have a serious sick mind to believe "white" means
| "white supremacy" and that anything "black" means oppression
| towards black people.
|
| I think a talk should be had about the Ottoman entire, when
| non-white people ruled a great part of the world, including
| _Europe_ and had, shocker...
|
| Wait for it...
|
| White people as slaves.
|
| Wow. What do the woke have to say about that? How comes we're
| not asking for retribution, today, to turkish people for the
| white people their ancestors used to have as slaves?
|
| One of my brother married a japanese woman and another
| brother had a kid with an african woman. So my kid's two
| cousins are half-asian and half-african. We speak several
| languages at home. We've lived in four countries. And I
| despise this cancer on earth that are woke leftists.
| zilti wrote:
| At this point there is so much that is claimed to be racist
| that the word is just about to lose it's meaning
| lindig wrote:
| "Show, don't tell" is lost on the authors. They only talk about
| visual ugliness.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| It's hard for me to understand what the author is exactly talking
| about without seeing more images.
| ekianjo wrote:
| its a word salad rant. An exercise in style to say mostly
| something that could be summed up in a few sentences.
| extractionmech wrote:
| tldr: "cars that look like renderings"
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Or just over two pictures, at 1 pic == 1000 words (he used
| ~2100 words)
| antegamisou wrote:
| Very typical of the average HN pseudointellectual actually.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Ah just walk outside in literally any city.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Doesn't even matter where I am from? I get different vibes in
| different cities and within the same city depending on the
| area as well. And does it specifically mean US cities only? I
| have been to US, but otherwise I'm from Europe.
| tetromino_ wrote:
| The article is an exaggerated but decently accurate
| portrayal of many cities and suburbs in the US in 2024.
|
| Europe is, I suppose, not as enshittified so far, but it's
| a matter of time.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Honestly, where I am, I feel like cities have become
| better over time.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Ah yes it's US cities in particular, yeah.
| michaelt wrote:
| You're going to need some more caveats for this, I'm afraid.
|
| Most major older cities established a central core in an age
| where people had taste.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Or, you're falling to survivorship bias in the sense that
| only the older cities that had taste still remain whereas
| the tasteless tasted the blade of the bulldozer.
| roenxi wrote:
| The entire subject is just annoying to respond to; on the topic
| of beauty it is much more helpful to have people advocating a
| positive than decrying a negative. It is too easy to complain
| that the world doesn't meet an unspecified artistic standard.
| It probably doesn't, but without some details on what standard
| we're talking about there is no conversation to be had. We
| don't do fiddly buildings these days, but that is because we're
| a lot better at building these days and a big building isn't
| automatically a masterpiece.
|
| Although on the art front I'm looking forward to learning what
| storms lie in wait for the first publicly notable pro-Trump
| statue in the US. It'll be a real cultural discovery.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Perhaps as, as an artist, the author was doing a write-up as
| ugly as the subject he was talking about.
|
| I could not finish it.
| redcobra762 wrote:
| Performance art, maybe.
| delecti wrote:
| Do a google image search for "millennial beige". Alternatively,
| look at just about any house listed on Zillow/Redfin/etc. It's
| a design style that prioritizes modern designs and neutral
| colors.
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| The other day, I saw some workers finishing a series of 8 white
| shipping-sized containers each with A/C, aligned one next to the
| other on a plot of urban land.
|
| I decided it had to be the expansion of a public (state) school,
| because I've read on the press about these containers being used
| in cases of shock-doctrine implementation.
|
| Compared to foreign universities, Public education and public
| buildings in general used to be ugly, uninspiring, from the
| cradle (horrible huge hospitals) to the grave (horrible huge
| condominia-like wall with niches for a coffin).
|
| We are transcending these thresholds to go full ugliness for the
| poor, in the name of economic efficiency
| firtoz wrote:
| There's a lot more variation nowadays imo, and you can find
| whatever you are looking for, consciously or not.
|
| If you want to find ugly, you can. If you want to find vibrant
| bright colours, you certainly can, too. At least in the UK, in
| both London and Manchester, where I have lived, you can find the
| best and the worst of many kinds of styles. Where I visited in
| Belfast, also. Also in Indonesia, from Bali to Jakarta, there's
| so much different kinds of styles you can experience. Sure, the
| "average vibe" is also kind of persistent, but I think the
| average vibe has been quite bland in many places for a while.
|
| This includes art, architecture and the vibe as well as interior
| decor.
|
| Edit: adjusted to distinguish between "general" and "average"
| hasty_pudding wrote:
| Theres a style I see on HN where ppl disagree with the post at
| the start, the halfway in agree with the post. Im not sure if
| thats a new thing or if I just started noticing it.
|
| > sure, the "general vibe" is also kind of persistent, but I
| think the general vibe has been quite bland in many places for
| a while.
| firtoz wrote:
| The article is talking about the new ugliness somewhat more,
| that's what I am trying to address.
|
| But, ironically, my comment of "you can find what you look
| for" is applicable for your observation too ;)
|
| Besides, it's okay to agree with some points and disagree
| with some points.
| midasuni wrote:
| Beauty isn't valued in these areas by those with the resources to
| choose it.
|
| When the majority of people and businesses live hand to mouth,
| those that don't have to constantly maximise exponential returns
| to their owners. Who has money to burn on "valueless" beauty
|
| Even if the cost of beauty is the same, and there is an actual
| value, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you are
| increasing maximum potential value but you are reducing the
| minimum (you turn off some buyers who don't like the look). Throw
| in the concept changing over time (pale green bathrooms used to
| be a big think in the U.K. in the 80s) and people go for neutral
| and boring.
| extractionmech wrote:
| The issue is that New York decided as a strategy to rely on
| tourism revenue - it has _nothing_ to do with "millenials". I
| remember working as an intern building models for the disney
| land of 42nd street. Yes the models were cheesy (go take a
| look) but I mean anyone here remember Times Square before? That
| was one serious cesspool and I say this as a confirmed fan of
| late 80s New York, you know the city that your mom and dad were
| afraid to visit? (Anyone here remember having beers on the
| stoop outside of Finneli's on Prince? AfterHours Soho was
| awesome..)
|
| No one is afraid anymore so the 'filter' that selected
| 'confirmed urbanites' was lifted. The city reflects its new
| demographics. The OP and myself and the rest of urbanite that
| got a 'buzz' just walking in the city now mostly decamp to
| Brooklyn.
|
| Speaking of Brooklyn, I must register my public approval of
| gentrification of Williamsburg. I actually lived in
| Williamsburg when the only (only) sign of civilization was a
| bagel shop next to the L. But let's take Domino Park. That's
| not ugly, is it?
|
| So, two items: Money, and Taste. Now we people of 'taste' were
| priced out of Manhattan. And now you have what you have.
|
| Let's blame Giulliani for this. I never liked the man /g
| MiguelX413 wrote:
| Is /g an abbreviation of /gen?
| extractionmech wrote:
| /g for grin. /G big grin that shows teeth
| Arnt wrote:
| (I studied architecture until I switched to CS.)
|
| It's not beauty, exactly. It's norms.
|
| Some places have fairly strong norms. If you own a plot of land
| (perhaps with an old building) in such a place and go to an
| architect ask for a proposal to renovate/rebuild/whatever, the
| architect will tell you clearly what you'll be permitted to
| build and what not.
|
| In such a place, your new building will look rather like its
| neighbours. Unless you want to try to fight the building
| commission, maybe you think the voters disagree with the
| commission and you can force the elected officials to overrule
| the commission.
|
| In other places you have a lot more flexibility, and in that
| case you have the option to build beautifully, and you also
| also a lot of less beautiful options.
|
| You may think the second question is the key: Do people who
| hire architects and builders choose to build beautifully or
| not? I think the first one is the most important factor. The
| second matters seldom, because even when the choice is there,
| the choice is usually for such a small area that you can see
| five or ten independent buildings, and the overall effect will
| lack beauty even if one or two buildings are beautiful.
| jevoten wrote:
| > (you turn off some buyers who don't like the look)
|
| Fortunately the modernist minimal grayscale look is universally
| beloved, so no-one is turned off by that.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Can't bring myself to read a screed like this. Every few years
| there's been an article making exactly this complaint for
| hundreds of years. Most things are ugly and/or trash. Always has
| been, always will be. And the current fashion will eventually
| change, it always does.
| electric_mayhem wrote:
| As for the outside world, the artist is confronted by what he
| sees; but what he sees is primarily what he looks at." -- Andre
| Malraux
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah I kind of jumped around to figure out what the meat of the
| argument is. I didn't figure it out, but I do feel bad for the
| authors. If everything around you is consistently terrible and
| every waking moment is agony... it might not be the world
| that's the problem. That might come from inside. Maybe talk to
| someone about how you feel.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| The submitted link has an anchor in the middle of the article.
| Why?
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| The submitted link contains an anchor/hash pointing to the middle
| of the (long) article. Why?
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Poster was as sloppy as the author himself
| ekianjo wrote:
| its art?
| andrelaszlo wrote:
| Maybe for people (like me) who stopped reading the article
| half-way through when it was posted about a year ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33894679
|
| The title should have had an additional exclamation point.
| newsclues wrote:
| Why do communists build brutalist buildings?
|
| I don't think the recent trend in abandoning aesthetics is
| accidental.
| camdenlock wrote:
| Brutalism and communism are what happens when people pretend
| that human nature doesn't exist.
| shakow wrote:
| > Why do communists build brutalist buildings?
|
| Typically because they face a huge population move from the
| countryside to the city areas, and thus have to build as fast
| as can be and on a budget, which leads to what you can see
| there.
|
| You can observe a similar pattern in many countries, e.g.
| here[0] in France, in the Lyon suburbs.
|
| [0]
| https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/image/boW0onRHUjdzzl...
| alkonaut wrote:
| The debate about how we can't make classic beauty anymore will
| always be around (and it's not very interesting).
|
| But what strikes me in some "ugly" cities is how accepted it is
| to let things be objectively ugly, for example in some cities you
| can see how a building wedged between two beautiful buildings has
| been torn down but the effort to build a new one seems on hold.
| As if owning the building/land gave the right to leave a scar for
| any amount of time. In cities where this doesn't happen I imagine
| you simply don't get a permit to leave an ugly hole. Build it or
| face a stiff fine, perhaps forcing you to sell to someone who
| would build. Seems like the only reasonable way of keeping it
| tidy. A lot of UK inner city areas look like this for example.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure gravity may have some demands in how fast an
| ugly building comes down.
| gary_0 wrote:
| Yes, but isn't it _cyberpunk as fuck_? Welcome to living out your
| wildest nightmares.
| mw67 wrote:
| Relevant account for those wanting more photos illustrating the
| article: https://x.com/culture_crit?s=21&t=vrepFz-CnvLdHpV1b9UI0A
|
| And a great YT channel explaining these points too:
| https://youtu.be/C9pg2j2oGy0?si=83HrNdnZ6PdwGfrf
| dzdt wrote:
| Discussed previously (2022) :
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33894679
| user_7832 wrote:
| I've got a counterpoint: we finally have the time to breathe and
| _actually notice_ the ugliness. You don't care about looks in a
| time of war. You put a lot of effort into "looks" and loving well
| shortly after a war as a rebound "look now it's so better"
| compensation. We've instead (mostly) plateaued, which, at a
| (mostly) global level isn't necessarily bad.
|
| (Of course, if art is a reflection of present-day it's not
| necessarily _predicting_ a stable future in the context of global
| warming /water wars etc. I wonder if more graffiti will show up
| on these themes over time.)
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| World War 3 has been going on since 2010. We are currently in
| one of history's times of great turbulence.
|
| (Most people lived through the fall of the Roman Empire and
| didn't even notice it.)
| I-M-S wrote:
| Why 2010 exactly?
| andrelaszlo wrote:
| Discussion from 2022:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33894679
| donatj wrote:
| My city and apparently numerous cities in my area have passed
| ordinances that new buildings over a certain size have to have
| multiple facades to look like multiple buildings butted up to
| each other. The effect has been this astonishingly hideous theme
| park esq approximation of small town America that isn't fooling
| anyone. It looks more out of place next to the actual turn of the
| twentieth century buildings than an unambiguously new building
| would.
|
| We can all see quite clearly this block long apartment building
| isn't actually 5 buildings. Yet, now we have to suffer five
| hideous facades.
| dzdt wrote:
| And there is no economic possibility for small developers to
| actually build multiple buildings organically anymore. This is
| because of the economics of scale of complying with stringent
| building code requirements along with endless zoning board
| approval meetings, environmental reviews, traffic studies, etc
| etc etc.
| mgaunard wrote:
| Actually if you're talking about the US there are actually
| laws that prevent small developments; it's not just
| financials.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| This is very, very, very place dependent, which is part of
| the problem TBH.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Sounds hilarious. Where's that?
| donatj wrote:
| Minneapolis Suburbs. There's been a huge apartment building
| boom, and cities with leftover small town vibes have passed
| these ordinances.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| That's funny. I don't know about any ordinance, but you're
| describing my town's new downtown. [1]
|
| Just around the corner is a 75+ yro brick building (to the
| right of this street view) [2] with a detailed facade fashioned
| to have a small personal scale and plays with ornament to align
| with other older buildings on this street. (And this is some
| firm's same solution/plan that you can find in at least one
| development miles away. [3])
|
| The building to the left of the street view is a monstrosity,
| and here is another around the corner [4]
|
| I've heard many long-time residents complain bitterly about the
| experience of walking our downtown, so I hope this new building
| will move the needle in the right direction for folks.
|
| For the speed the new building went up and the challenge to
| develop in such a central area on a large plot, I think the
| result is positive (though, I'm sure I could not afford to rent
| there).
|
| [1]: https://maps.app.goo.gl/XKzYWUhiV5WTUBXv7?g_st=ic
|
| [2]: https://maps.app.goo.gl/fGY9DYCvH6xZdNbz5?g_st=ic
|
| [3]: https://maps.app.goo.gl/pgBMZ3wLUr3yCGvL8?g_st=ic
|
| [4]: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yj1Mk9pAE9BFMrNm6?g_st=ic
| everybodyknows wrote:
| For most hideous misfeature of [1], I nominate this clash of
| siding styles: The turrets of mid-mod aluminum rectangles not
| merely abutting, but actually projecting out of their base
| walls of faux-wood-lap siding.
| zip1234 wrote:
| It's actually often enforced in zoning codes as "breaking up
| the massing".
| jszymborski wrote:
| I just wanted to echo the gray frustration here. I went to buy
| vinyl flooring (I can't afford hardwood) and the sheer amount of
| inexplicably "grey wood" planks was staggering. Why! Like, it's
| as if some alien only saw wood in an episode of I Love Lucy and
| wanted to replicate it.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| I blame house flippers honestly. They buy up houses that are in
| rough shape on the cheap, then renovate strictly to sell, not
| for personal taste. The incentives at play are to shoot for a
| very dull, milquetoast instagram-ish aesthetic that anyone can
| sort of get along with, so you won't lose people for not liking
| whatever hardwood or paint colors you picked.
| FerretFred wrote:
| Yeah! Watching _any_ episode of (UK) daytime-TV 's "Homes
| Under the Hammer" will reveal any number of properties - some
| with real character - refurbished with every shade of grey
| you can imagine. It looks awful to be honest and really, what
| kind of philistine paints over real wood anyway? What really
| bugs me is the way the estate agents visit afterwards and say
| "how tastefully it's been renovated".
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| But what if you look at it from an auction theory
| perspective. If there's a set of buyers with a set of bids,
| you're trying to get a large set of buyers (if you're pulling
| samples from a distribution, more samples = higher max), but
| you're also trying to increase the value these buyers are
| willing to pay (shift the distribution to the right). I
| wonder if there's some amount of customization, in a healthy
| housing market (tons of buyers) that you can do that
| increases the expected max bid despite decreasing number of
| prospective buyers.
| jwells89 wrote:
| My guess is that most things that would boost selling price
| while narrowing buyers are not cheap which cancels (or
| mostly cancels) out the price increase, making it cheaper
| and more foolproof to go the boring inoffensive route.
| wincy wrote:
| Right, for example if I was shopping right now a house
| elevator would be a huge positive to me as my daughter is
| a wheelchair user and will be getting more difficult to
| carry up and down the stairs.
|
| That said as someone who was in a lot of middle class and
| upper class homes due to a previous job, I saw exactly
| one elevator in a single family home. I doubt it would
| even factor into the price because most people would have
| no interest in even using the elevator beyond a novelty.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| HGTV's _Home Town_ goes for a more vernacular look, so is to
| be applauded. What they do seems more labor intensive though.
| account-5 wrote:
| Nothing wrong with vinyl, you can get some real good quality
| vinyl flooring.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Totally, I'm really happy with the functional properties of
| the vinyl I ended up buying. That said, I truly love how
| hardwood looks.
| petepete wrote:
| I thought this grey decor trend was a British phenomenon - glad
| it's not just us!
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Millennials in America apparently actually like the monotone
| look; it's not just the resale thing. The process of making
| the house more bland for resale used to be called 'beige-ing'
| by realtors (estate agents?) in the US; it's not new, but it
| wasn't always white and gray.
| ghaff wrote:
| Someone I know (Gen X I guess) just built a new house and
| the design is nice enough and the location great. But the
| unending gray in every room... would not have been my
| choice.
| topaz0 wrote:
| Not sure where you're getting this. Zero of my millenial
| friends like this look -- and we represent a wide range of
| the millenial years.
| j4yav wrote:
| I don't know if it's millennials per se but subreddits
| about cozy, nice living spaces are upvoting for whatever
| reason quite uniformly empty and gray minimalist designs.
| Like a distopian hospital from the future or something.
| topaz0 wrote:
| Since when are redditors representative of the
| population?
| j4yav wrote:
| Just noting the existence of a trend, not making any
| broader statement about redditors being representative of
| the population. Hopefully we can at least agree there are
| millennials on Reddit upvoting the style, or if not
| there's always plenty of articles like
| https://millennialmagazine.com/2019/10/02/why-are-
| millennial.... Or, if that isn't compelling either, there
| are replies from other millennials here indicating they
| like it.
|
| In any case try not to worry too much about it, there are
| plenty of people with (arguably) bad taste in every
| generation.
| nostromo wrote:
| > Not sure where you're getting this.
|
| No, it is (or was) definitely a trend. Google "millennial
| gray" -- it's so common it became a meme.
| topaz0 wrote:
| I've observed the trend. I'm unsurprised that it was
| named after the generation that was putatively buying the
| most houses at the time. But I haven't observed any
| people my age actually _liking_ this fact.
| nytesky wrote:
| Pretty sure it's embraced by Millenials. Kids toys and room
| decorations used to be vivid bright colors, and now they
| are a sea of beige highlighted with very faint pastal
| colors if they have color at all.
|
| https://www.crateandbarrel.com/kids/
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/hot-new-baby-gear-is-sad-
| beige-...
| j4yav wrote:
| That second one looks like a sanitarium for babies.
| dylan604 wrote:
| What, but that "Wild and Free" banner totally livens
| everything up. /s
|
| I would be interested in seeing the adult that grew up in
| that nursery. Like, do their meals have a side of fava
| beans and a nice chianti?
| j4yav wrote:
| "Do you like Raffi? I've been a big children's music fan
| ever since the release of his classic album, "Singable
| Songs for the Very Young." Before that, I really didn't
| understand any of the kiddie tunes. Too jingly, too
| toddler-tastic. It was on "Singable Songs" where Raffi's
| catchy melodies became more apparent. I think "Baby
| Beluga" was the artist's undisputed masterpiece. It's an
| epic lullaby on ocean adventures. At the same time, it
| deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three
| albums. Teddy, take off your PJs."
| dylan604 wrote:
| I do believe this is the first time I've ever read such
| an adult critique of a children's performer. I have no
| idea about anything you just said though, but you clearly
| feel passionately about ABCs and 123s. Or you're decent
| at the GPT prompt
| j4yav wrote:
| It was meant as a parody of one of Patrick Bateman's
| monologues in American Psycho.
| mgaunard wrote:
| It's called "taste".
| Izkata wrote:
| Personal theory (being a Millennial that likes it): The
| walls shouldn't draw attention and this is a great way to
| do it, giving more focus to what's actually in the room.
| First image does this well.
|
| But then that second one is just bad. Like product makers
| don't understand the goal, thinking we actively like the
| color instead of de-emphasizing the walls, and we're
| stuck with it.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Friend bought an older house and had a designer over. They
| were looking at one rooms redo and upon hearing the
| previous owners were younger gen she sighed and said "Oh,
| that it explains it. We call them The Grays"
| dylan604 wrote:
| No, you've infected the rest of us as well. Congrats!
| yostrovs wrote:
| When selling our previous property, the seller agent
| recommended we paint it in "agreeable gray," supposedly the
| current color that is neutral and will not affect anyone
| negatively.
| nytesky wrote:
| Is that like greige ?
|
| https://www.thespruce.com/greige-best-neutral-color-
| ever-797...
| mgaunard wrote:
| The problem with grey is that it's blue-ish and therefore
| feels dark and cold.
|
| greige fixes that.
| ghaff wrote:
| I have a lot of beige in my house. If I didn't want to go
| that warm, I could definitely see some take on greige as
| an alternative to colder gray.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I have been trained to prefer off-white... So I find that
| grey or brown somewhat offensive and think off-white is
| actually better for light and everything... Even when my
| choice is as non-personal.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| What I find really interesting is that women can see shades
| that men cannot. My wife painted several shades of grey on
| the wall, including "agreeable gray" and I could not tell the
| difference, all looked the same. I experienced the same thing
| when she was looking for a grey / green for the kitchen
| cabinets. I could not tell the difference and all looked
| grey. She was also able to see shades of blue where all I saw
| was grey.
|
| I have asked around and I am not the only male in my
| acquaintances that experiences this.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Like when you look at new builds.
|
| You have builder grey, builder white, builder off white, and
| builder beige.
| juggertao wrote:
| The current advice is when you buy something to already think
| about the resale value of the item.
|
| So this excludes all colors for everything. Black, white, gray
| everything.
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| Call it capitalism, call it competition, call it an
| optimization process or w/e but this is a common phenomenon.
| Whenever you have people trying to maximize some value
| they'll copy the strategy they view as most successful and
| other factors take a back seat.
|
| Maximizing the resale value of a home involves making it
| appeal to the largest number of people. Adding character
| risks lowering demand by appealing to niche markets. So you
| end up with lots of white and grey.
|
| You see similar things all over the place. Want to maximize
| your career? Better suppress your individuality in favor of
| copying how successful people speak, act, and dress.
|
| If you've ever heard the term "TikTok Beat" that's a similar
| phenomenon where the most popular music on TikTok gets copied
| like a meme by wannabe famous music producers.
|
| It's a process that ends up with bland results as variety is
| reduced over time. It's also dehumanizing as humanity is
| slowly stripped away due to inefficiency.
| deebosong wrote:
| To piggyback off of this with a call-to-action against the
| realities you point out, I think it's absolutely valuable
| and worth it to go after the aesthetic things that you like
| even for subjective reasons, and even if prevailing trends
| say otherwise, at the expense of falling outside the
| confines of conformity for the sake of pseudo-safety.
|
| Safety in numbers is a thing, but when it comes to art &
| design & aesthetics, it utterly kills courage, and things
| are done out of fear of rejection or disapproval, which
| makes the end product feel bland, uninspired, forgettable,
| and will be dated in a few years. Might as well just
| explore what is interesting to you and not worry about
| public reception. But then that's tied into many other
| things like fear of rejection, fear of sticking out, fear
| of failure, etc., that may need to be unearthed and
| explored in oneself - which is utterly worthwhile and
| necessary to do, and by staving it off you only do yourself
| and others a massive disservice and continue to operate in
| fear.
|
| But yeah I'm making blanket statements that needs context,
| etc.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I don't think this is the only issue.
|
| People have always copied each other throughout history.
| In the past before the industrial age it was much more
| difficult though as you had to use local materials and
| labor. Now we have global corporations and many of them
| are near monopolies in many industries. Add to this that
| making a billion of one thing massively drops the costs
| over something you make a million of, so you're far more
| apt to see the billion item unit on cost factors alone.
|
| Also we see lots of wildly different looking products
| when looking back at the past, but this is likely a lot
| of survivorship bias. Because they were different people
| kept them and tossed the common thing without regard.
|
| Lastly, I'd add in a question of how things are financed.
| If you're asking for a huge pile of money to make a
| product, it's going to be a lot easier to get it when you
| choose the safe and proven option then one that is
| riskier.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There is also the question of new mass media.
|
| I would hazard a guess and say if you look at AirBnB
| throughout major cities in the world, the aesthetic will
| largely be the same. Trends existed before but were often
| adapted to local taste, yet now everywhere has the same
| overpriced coffee shop with rustic wood/metal tables and
| edison bulbs.
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| There's also a boiling the frog element.
| bluetomcat wrote:
| I see it as an "iphonification" of industrial design and
| architecture. White cars became trendy in the early 2010s,
| after the white iPhone 4. Every item that wants to be
| perceived as a quality one is targeting that minimalistic,
| uncluttered, quirk-free look.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Beige computer cases with lots of details falling out of
| the way for black boxes, and then black boxes with LEDs,
| will always be the bane of my aesthetic existence.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I'm not really sure that's the issue... Even by 2000
| color car popularity had began its drop with silver and
| black with the growing market. White did gain a lot of
| popularity then, but a lot of this was recovery from what
| it had lost in the early 90s.
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/news/37001/this-graph-shows-how-
| car...
| pixl97 wrote:
| >You see similar things all over the place.
|
| It's called society. If most people didn't follow other
| people (or demand it!) we would not have societies at all.
| We'd be individualistic animals, or at best small tribes.
|
| >It's also dehumanizing
|
| You're completely wrong. People copying and following the
| path of others is one of the reasons we've dominated earth.
| Only a very small portion of us are risk takers that make
| new trends that others follow.
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| Humans are messy and sub-optimal. Optimization processes
| will always favor robotic adherence to optimal
| characteristics which means, unless constrained, our
| humanity is on the chopping block.
|
| There's a reason phrases like "worker bee" have become
| common, it's because people feel like they're expected to
| be drones at work instead of humans.
| linster wrote:
| I think luxury goods, and the privilege of living within your
| means, is to be able to buy goods and instantly depreciate
| them.
|
| I buy electronics equipment, computers, furniture, clothes,
| and cars with the mindset I will be the last owner of them,
| and they will have no resale value.
|
| "I bought this, and I will assume it's instantly worthless"
|
| It keeps me from buying the same thing twice and causes me to
| save up for the thing I really want, and keep it for as long
| as possible. It also lets me be picky about my preferences
| and really scope out exactly what I want on a relaxed
| timeframe.
|
| Perhaps it's a side effect of growing up with hand me downs,
| and knowing anything our family owned was one step to junk,
| but it does keep spending in check now that I am doing okay
| in my career.
| mint2 wrote:
| I don't know about that, gray in houses exudes a feel of
| cheapness. If I see gray and especially gray vinyl it screams
| budget build and corner cutting. If one looks at rental
| housing, like half of them have gray floors and those ones
| are always cheaply renovated.
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| I firmly dislike cherrywood, anything that is more red than
| brown is absolute shit to me. My parents loved it, thought it
| was the pinnacle of wealth.
|
| Now you might be questioning why I dislike cherrywood. The
| answer doesn't actually matter though, I dislike it. Most
| importantly, I am not the only one.
|
| I like vinyl, because I spent a few weeks of my life (probably
| at most a few hours total actual wall clock hours on it)
| replacing flooring in a couple of rooms through a few houses.
| The beginning, and the rest of my answer here though, also does
| not matter. It only matters that I like it and will pay money
| for it over wood. I am also, not the only one.
|
| Gray is used for many reasons in new builds, its a neutral
| color, and because many builders build a house/apartment, THEN
| sell to customers. Very few customers buy a plot of land,
| contract an architect, make customizations, and then build the
| building. It comes with the realization that people will
| substitute out the things they want on their own, not requiring
| someone else figure out everything they like and being creative
| all on their behalf for $0.
| pixl97 wrote:
| No idea why you're downvoted for this, but I guess pointing
| out the obvious on HN makes some people mad.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| Had you started your post with i like vinyl, i would have
| stopped reading sooner.
| Ekaros wrote:
| My current place have this. I don't care to pay to replace it,
| but I would much prefer something light wood. Which is somewhat
| traditional indoors. It would also go with most things.
| morkalork wrote:
| Forget flooring, why are carpets and rugs with a grey and
| washed out faded look so popular? If you want a muted look,
| just don't buy one! Their whole purpose is to add color and
| style to a room and yet so much of what's available looks
| terrible.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The AirBnB/house flip aesthetic is truly quite lowest common
| denominator.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| After a flood, I bought pine? colored Luxury Vinyl Plank at my
| wife's insistence. Previously we had dark engineered bamboo
| which looked good but it constantly scratched (chairs and dogs)
| which really bothered her and I was always worried about water
| getting on it. I was against the vinyl just because it was
| vinyl. I was wrong. This stuff is awesome. Looks great, close
| to water proof short of a flood and pretty much no scratches in
| a year plus of being down. It was not that much cheaper though
| vs engineered wood but a good deal less expensive than
| hardwood.
| Gigachad wrote:
| That's surprising. From the interior design content I watch,
| the white and grey aesthetic is very much considered outdated
| and a mistake. Warm wood tones are much higher regarded.
| vdaea wrote:
| Because the elites want to demoralise us. Looking at ugly things
| lowers our standards and makes us depressed.
|
| Oh, and that also goes for advertisements: advertisements with
| unattractive people practically didn't exist ten years ago. Now
| we are constantly bombarded with them.
| mmbop wrote:
| This would require a huge amount of collaboration amongst the
| elite and managers. Where can I find out more?
| dhdidbsisnab wrote:
| The same line of reasoning could be used to justify
| creationism.
|
| Human culture is an incredibly complex system that can create
| shared behaviors without any central coordination. While I'm
| not in agreement (or disagreement) with the parent, it's
| certainly plausible without the coordination you're implying.
| mmbop wrote:
| I was politely trying to point this out. I think this is a
| classic Occam's Razor scenario.
|
| One likely cause is that "boring" style can appeal to a
| wider audience and sell more units.
| vstm wrote:
| Nowadays even the conspiracy theories are becoming ugly and
| boring. The only thing they've got going for them is how many
| people are spreading them.
|
| Now I actually want to die from the vaccines.
| dhdidbsisnab wrote:
| > Now I actually want to die from the vaccines
|
| Are you implying that's a conspiracy theory? Big pharma has
| a history of abusing the edge cases and dismissing those is
| one of the major causes of "conspiracy theories".
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| > Because the elites want to demoralise us
|
| Yeah no. The "elites" want profit, that's why we turned every
| part of the planet that we don't use for agriculture into
| concrete car scapes. Or Something.
|
| > advertisements with unattractive people practically didn't
| exist ten years ago. Now we are constantly bombarded with them
|
| incel vibes here. This is so hilariously stupid that it
| prevents me from being tempted to flag your comment.
| vdaea wrote:
| What's stupid, that there are many more unattractive people
| in advertisements today that ten years ago? You may disagree
| if you want but I don't see how that observation is "stupid".
| No idea what incel vibes means...
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| You're bombarded with advertisements with uggos because of
| backlash from the very kind of people who would blame all
| their failure and misery on "elites." They rage tweeted
| every time someone disciplined in maintaining their health
| and physique dared to appear in an advert.
| Izkata wrote:
| > No idea what incel vibes means...
|
| "incel" is short for "involuntary celibate"; people who the
| other sex doesn't find attractive / can't get laid.
| Originally it was self-applied by people who wanted to
| figure out what was wrong with themselves, but turned into
| an insult years ago.
| apantel wrote:
| A whole article about ugly things with no pictures of them?
| 65 wrote:
| I don't trust the author if he's not giving any visual
| examples. Why should I trust his opinion?
| logicprog wrote:
| Yeah, I immediately skimmed the article to see if there were
| any pictures of what the author considers ugly so I could get
| a sense for what their tastes are and adjust for that
| accordingly, or even conclude that their opinions weren't
| relevant to me, and the one single picture of an example ugly
| thing that I was able to find looked absolutely perfectly
| fine to me, in fact I liked it. I think a lot of the
| complaints around ugly architecture are just matters of
| difference of aesthetics: I'm autistic and a have certain
| amount of brain damage to my vision centers and so I deal
| with sensory overload a lot, and so I tend to prefer
| interfaces and environments that are clean and simple, made
| of just enough shapes and colors to communicate the structure
| of things and that's it, with no extraneous ornamentation or
| gradients or whatever, so a lot of modern architecture looks
| fine or even nice and refreshing to me, like a glass of cool
| water. Meanwhile, most of the people I find complaining about
| this sort of thing are the typical hipsters and grouchy
| conservatives -- both of the "I was born too late" variety
| and the "I was literally born a long time ago" variety --
| that are looking fondly on a past age just out of their own
| personal preferences and predilections, and probably without
| any real understanding of what it was like to live surrounded
| by overly ornate architecture all the time, which is
| perfectly fine for them, but then they make these Grand think
| pieces and statements about how things should be, which is
| frustrating since I would rather gouge my own eyes out then
| live in the world they would prefer oftentimes.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I don't think the intent is to convince people with visual
| evidence, or "bring the receipts".
|
| Not every article is or should be targeted at convincing the
| resistant reader, and visual examples can be a distraction or
| simplification of a broader idea.
|
| It is valid for an article to simply connect ideas together,
| in a way the reader may not be aware of. A reader may have
| their own examples to think about, which are much more
| powerful.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| It's even weirder than that -- the movie that is mentioned,
| "Army Soldier II" is not coming up in my searches.
|
| Still, to this point:
|
| > Such bad lighting -- and such large portions! We exit the
| movie theater to a bright realization: our films are exactly as
| overlit as our reality. As our environment has become blander,
| it has also become more legible -- too legible. That's a shame,
| because many products of the new ugliness could benefit from a
| little chiaroscuroed ambiguity
|
| Cool that I learned a new word. Having just watched "Badlands"
| last night from 1973, I definitely agree modern cinema has
| become way too "graded".
| bhewes wrote:
| I think it is a reference to "Red Notice 2"
| gary_0 wrote:
| Strong Sad taught me that word back in 2003:
| https://homestarrunner.com/sbemails/58-dragon
| qgin wrote:
| Pictures risk having people disagree with the author's personal
| taste and the article hinges on there being a single correct
| taste
| karaterobot wrote:
| Another article on the same topic, is "Why You Hate Contemporary
| Architecture" by Adrian Rennix and Nathan J. Robinson.
|
| https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/why-you-hate-contempo...
|
| The two don't necessarily disagree, but I think the one I linked
| is better written. Plus, something about having all the block
| quotes be from tweets always makes me feel like the author isn't
| doing enough research or reading widely enough to be
| authoritative.
| chatallo wrote:
| fwiw I don't think the block quotes are from tweets, I think
| that's just a link to share the quote on twitter
| Jeema101 wrote:
| Oh man. There is this building in the city where I live. It's SO
| uncompromisngly gray and ugly that sometimes I think maybe it's
| actually a parody of this particular style. It kind of looks like
| a prison from the outside too... but it's actually condos! I hate
| it so much that I love it. :)
|
| Anyway here's a great photo of it I found on Google:
|
| https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipMKvYH4OHFU5o4gZlSZ...
| waldothedog wrote:
| I kinda like it! The rivets are interesting, and the window
| proportions too. Plus the photo has nice light, which doesn't
| hurt.
| j4yav wrote:
| Wow you weren't kidding. Looks like a sheet metal factory.
| toastedwedge wrote:
| It looks like it's straight out of an urban scene for
| Equilibrium.
| dzdt wrote:
| Missing context: I believe the building referred to as "The Josh"
| is the Gluck+ affordable housing development Van Sinderen Plaza.
| [1]
|
| Compare the colorful panel surfacing to the description "Our new
| neighbor is a classic 5-over-1: retail on the ground floor,
| topped with several stories of apartments one wouldn't want to be
| able to afford... We spent the summer certain that the caution
| tape-yellow panels on The Josh's south side were insulation, to
| be eventually supplanted by an actual facade. Alas, in its
| finished form The Josh really is yellow, and also burgundy, gray,
| and brown."
|
| The coy phrasing about "apartments one wouldn't want to be able
| to afford" is a disguised reference to the fact that the
| apartments are reserved only for low-income residents; the author
| would not want to live in Brooklyn on the poverty-level income
| required to be eligible for the housing development.
|
| The pictured sculpture the author dislikes is "Waiting" by the
| artist KAWS (Brian Donnelly). [2]
|
| [1] https://gluckplus.com/project/van-sinderen-plaza-
| affordable-... [2]
| https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/kaws-waiting-brook...
| woodruffw wrote:
| I don't think it's that building: the visual description
| matches, but Brownsville has (thus far) resisted the
| gentrification that the author describes in the associated
| area.
|
| My educated guess is that the building in question is somewhere
| in Williamsburg, Greenpoint, or maybe Bushwick.
| abhaynayar wrote:
| I misread it as everyone and was disappointed when I realized.
| Throw84949 wrote:
| Go and spend summer in Russia, it is the perfect antidote. St.
| Petersburg is amazingly beautiful! Museums, architecture,
| cultural performances, no morbidly obese people on streets, no
| graffiti, even metro is nice!
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I'd rather visit sunny Magnitogorsk:
| https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fn...
|
| (Actually I'd rather visit Kyiv but I've heard that now's not a
| good time.)
| Throw84949 wrote:
| You can visit Kyiv.
|
| Regiojet.com has daily trains from Krakow to Kyiv, with
| guaranteed connection at UA border. It takes about 14 hours
| and 50 euro. Or dozens buses every day, but you will have to
| wait for several hours at border (train skips queue).
| hooverd wrote:
| Hey, you forgot to add the grey filter.
| BizarreByte wrote:
| An areal photo during the winter isn't very fair to the city.
| Looking around on street view during the summer months it
| doesn't look nearly as bad. A bit run down, but that's common
| for nearly all ex-soviet cities.
| Throw84949 wrote:
| Magnitogorsk has nice weather in summer. Some green parks,
| decent public transport. But not that much fun, westerners
| usually prefer university cities. It has very nice
| surrounding nature.
|
| Polution is ok I guess (India and China were far worse from
| my experience). It is not industrial shithole as OP
| suggests. Factories were cleaned up over 30 years. And
| smoke stack are quite high and leave smoke in high
| atmosphere. And most of them use natural gas anyway...
|
| There is 2.5 hours walk through on youtube: "Magnitogorsk,
| Russia. Metallurgic Capital and Steel Heart of Russia. Ural
| Trip 1".
| BizarreByte wrote:
| > Magnitogorsk has nice weather in summer. Some green
| parks, decent public transport. But not that much fun,
| westerners usually prefer university cities. It has very
| nice surrounding nature.
|
| Sounds like a lot of western cities honestly. Most are
| okay places to live, but not exactly happening, overly
| fun places.
|
| I'll be honest I expected a lot worse when looking on
| street view, but I looked around a bunch of places and
| was like "I could live here".
|
| > There is 2.5 hours walk through on youtube:
| "Magnitogorsk, Russia. Metallurgic Capital and Steel
| Heart of Russia. Ural Trip 1".
|
| I'll take a look.
| Throw84949 wrote:
| > "I could live here".
|
| Winters are brutal and quite depressing. All sorts of
| blood leaching insects in summer. Some people have
| alergies to clouds of pollen... And Russian
| administration was challenging even before the war.
|
| I am nomad, it is part of my rotation. Very nice place
| for couple of weeks at right time of year. (not
| Magnitogorsk specifically)
| BizarreByte wrote:
| > Winters are brutal and quite depressing. All sorts of
| blood leaching insects in summer. Some people have
| alergies to clouds of pollen..
|
| Honestly sounds like most Canadian cities I'm familiar
| with, particularly Winnipeg.
|
| > And Russian administration was challenging even before
| the war.
|
| Yah that I don't know if I could put up with that.
| Throw84949 wrote:
| If you are tired of Canada, try Wroclav in April for a
| month, slavic mentality may not be for everyone. There is
| yt channel "offshore citizen", international tax
| accountant from Canada, pretty good info.
| hbarka wrote:
| Contrast it with beautiful areas like the Amalfi Coast or any old
| town in the Mediterranean. They have color and trees. The advent
| of concrete, specifically Portland cement, brought on the gray
| brutalism. Builders would rather leave the stark concrete raw
| than color it.
| detourdog wrote:
| I see quality building as a materials problem. I'm little
| surprised at the number of comments promoting that color is tied
| to quality.
|
| I see color generally as the least significant feature of design.
| There are situation where color becomes important to communicate
| ideas. These moments I see as design details. I don't see them
| generally as intrinsic to design.
|
| Mosts of the factors I see discussed in this thread are more
| related to mass manufacturing and trying to guess what people
| want.
|
| Everything is ugly becuase few people take personal
| responsibility in making the world better.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| The new Prius is actually not that awful.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| > After New York replaced the sodium-vapor lights in the city's
| 250,000 streetlamps with shiny new LEDs in 2017, the experience
| of walking through the city at night transformed, almost . . .
| overnight. Forgiving, romantic, shadowy orange gave way to cold,
| all-seeing bluish white.
|
| Before the late 1970s, NYC was illuminated at night by pinkish-
| white incandescent bulbs.
|
| When the yellow monstrosities were rolled out people almost
| rioted. Their harsh orange glow invaded bedrooms creeping between
| gaps in curtains and assaulting the eyes, destroyed the soft and
| warm ambiance that had set the night scene for generations, and
| muted all colors into a monochromatic hellscape.
|
| After just 30 seconds on TimesMachine I found an article from
| 1982 about the transition and how some residents were hesitant
| and one jurisdiction rejected the change out of hand. It took a
| long time for NYC to gain its orange glow and people didn't like
| it.
| https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1982/09/12/137...
|
| Lol here's another article from the 40s: "Sodium light is not
| suitable for city streets, Commissioner Goodman said, because it
| gives a person a sallow appearance not liked by women."
|
| https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1940/05/26/iss...
|
| People of my age view them as a nuisance born out of the
| austerity of the 1970s, a temporary suboptimal fix that persisted
| due to inertia. A reminder of the rot and desperation of the that
| era.
|
| Now this dude is nostalgic for them?
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| People hate new things more than they hate the mediocrity they
| know.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Most of these aesthetic criticism people are just conservative
| people. They don't like change. The world was best when they
| arrived somewhere.
|
| That's pretty much it. SF is full of a similar kind.
| achileas wrote:
| This is the only real takeaway of the article. "I don't like
| this because it's new to me, therefore it's universally bad."
|
| I live in Boston and there was a similar freakout about the
| gas lamps in Beacon Hill being replaced by LEDs. Not a single
| person I talked to about it knew that the gas lamps were only
| added to the neighborhood in the late 70s to make it look
| more quaint and historic.
| esafak wrote:
| So they were added to suit the character of the
| neighborhood? That is a great selection criterion.
| renewiltord wrote:
| In SF, the most recent two controversies were over historic
| seating being removed from a Castro theatre and historic
| rusted iron protective chains being replaced by the
| waterfront. Age of said seating? 20 y. Age of chains? 30 y.
|
| It's not that I have a problem with this. It's just that I
| personally don't want to be considered historic in my mid
| 30s.
| lttlrck wrote:
| On the other hand, that they didn't know they were added
| "just" 40 years ago suggests that the decision to install
| them was a very good one? Not that I support gas street
| lighting, but there is a distinct lack of _genuinely_
| quaint and historic districts in US cities.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Are you sure?
|
| Many more people admire Taj Mahal or Ancient Greek/Roman
| buildings than, say, brutalist architecture. Heck, even Art
| Deco, while distinctly modern, seems to be likeable.
|
| I am fairly conservative myself, but I like some new Czech
| buildings, such as the Masarycka project by Zaha Hadid. It
| has a soaring soul that is hard to describe, but nevertheless
| you can feel the positive vibe of the structure when you walk
| underneath it.
|
| https://www.masarycka.com/cs/o-projektu/
|
| On the other hand, Le Corbusier architecture (mostly older
| than me, so I should have been used to it) looks like
| deliberate insult to anything human: _look at this concrete
| prison I made for you and weep and gnash your teeth because
| there is no escape from its rotting ugliness, you worm_.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I can't speak to the culture in Eastern Europe. I meant in
| the US where I'm quite sure considering old beloved
| artifacts of today are all the nightmarish monsters of
| yesteryear that people protested.
|
| Fortunately, the American version of this view will be
| smashed in the next two decades and we will enter an era of
| creation once again.
| codelikeawolf wrote:
| > A reminder of the rot and desperation of the that era.
|
| I think there's a tendency to romanticize this kind of thing, a
| la an early Tom Waits song. I've lived in Portland for a little
| under 5 years. I feel like it has been moving in the "ugly"
| direction the author describes for a while, and it started
| before I moved here. People that have been here much longer
| describe how it used to be much more "gritty" and dangerous.
| They say it with sort of a twinkle in their eye, almost as if
| they miss it. Part of me would have loved to see how it was,
| but the other part of me knows what's its like to be in the
| wrong part of town. At least you have the wherewithal to see
| why a move to LED lights was probably a smart move. Just
| because it's new and different doesn't make it bad.
| ghaff wrote:
| When someone mentions the "disneyfication" of Times Square
| I'm declined to think they have either very selective
| memories or they were never around that area and 42nd Street
| in the 80s especially late at night. They can still hang out
| at the Port Authority if they want to experience echoes of
| that time.
| vondur wrote:
| My main memory from the 70s as a child was the ugly fluorescent
| light everywhere outside.
| Paianni wrote:
| Chances are the pre-1980s lamps were mercury-vapour, not
| incandescent. Incandescent lamps were obsolete for road
| lighting by the 1950s. Sodium lamps caught on because they were
| much more efficient than both.
| mp05 wrote:
| > People of my age view them as a nuisance born out of the
| austerity of the 1970s, a temporary suboptimal fix that
| persisted due to inertia. A reminder of the rot and desperation
| of the that era.
|
| > Now this dude is nostalgic for them?
|
| You could just as readily be talking about a cassette tape.
| argiopetech wrote:
| The cassette tape has a lot of things going for it. They play
| for longer than CDs, they don't skip, they are simple to
| duplicate and record onto (with most cassette decks capable
| of one, if not both, actions), and the occasional tape tangle
| teaches patience and encourages mechanical understanding of
| the system. They can't compete with my phone and a bunch of
| FLAC for fidelity, but I wish they weren't effectively dead
| technology.
|
| Next, let's talk about how I miss CRTs...
| twiddling wrote:
| < Next, let's talk about how I miss CRTs
|
| Best television I had was a HD Sony CRT. Incredible
| picture.
|
| Also weighed over 230 pounds.
|
| My back does not miss CRTs
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Now this dude is nostalgic for them?_
|
| No, they really were better for sleep.
|
| With the orange-ish sodium lights, I could go to sleep with
| their light still coming through the bedroom window. The amber
| glow was reminiscent of the glow of fire.
|
| The harsh blue light now tells my brain it's daytime. I had to
| buy blackout curtains to be able to fall asleep.
|
| It's the same principle as using the amber-hued Night Mode on
| your phone in the evening.
|
| I never experienced the pinkish-white, but the transition from
| orange to blue has been horrible for sleep. Nighttime lighting
| around homes should be amber, not blue. (Contrast with highways
| where you do want people to stay awake, so blue makes sense.)
| ricardobeat wrote:
| > Contrast with highways where you do want people to stay
| awake, so blue makes sense
|
| I remember some kind of study around yellow light being ideal
| for roads actually. The human eye is more sensitive in the
| green/yellow part of the spectrum, the lights are more
| efficient and cut through fog better.
| saghm wrote:
| > With the orange-ish sodium lights, I could go to sleep with
| their light still coming through the bedroom window. The
| amber glow was reminiscent of the glow of fire.
|
| > The harsh blue light now tells my brain it's daytime. I had
| to buy blackout curtains to be able to fall asleep.
|
| When I moved in with my fiancee (at the time my girlfriend),
| I noticed after a couple months that I had a bit of trouble
| sleeping due to her often falling asleep later than me and
| being on her laptop for a bit. Since blackout curtains don't
| help with that, I bought a sleep mask for a few dollars from
| Amazon (basically a piece of nylon fabric and a strap,
| nothing specialized), and it's not an exaggeration to say
| that it's been life-changing. As a child, I'd often struggle
| to fall asleep due to literally any amount of light in my
| bedroom, and when I was in elementary school it got bad
| enough that it would take me several hours of lying in bed to
| finally fall asleep, and I ended up getting prescribed
| insomnia medication that I continued taking for a couple of
| decades. It turned out that with the sleep mask, I was able
| to taper off the prescription sleeping medication within a
| year or so, and I'm even able to get up earlier without being
| quite as groggy due to my quality of sleep increasing so
| much.
|
| If anyone else has similar issues with lighting interfering
| with their sleep, especially if it's from things within their
| building rather than outside, I'd highly recommend investing
| a few bucks to try this out. Obviously my sample size is only
| one, but given how drastic the effect was and how low-cost it
| is to try out, it would almost feel irresponsible for me not
| to suggest this to people.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Sleep mask + very good earplugs + some melatonin made me a
| very sound sleeper in my forties, while I suffered from
| chronic insomnia since my teens.
| Izkata wrote:
| Your links require a subscription to view.
|
| > Now this dude is nostalgic for them?
|
| An easily-unrealized benefit until people were forced to use
| them, they didn't ruin our low-light vision, at least not
| nearly as much as the new ones. You could easily see into unlit
| areas, or go from an unlit area to a lit one without your
| vision having to adjust.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| > Now this dude is nostalgic for them?
|
| I stopped reading there. I'll take LEDs over ugly orange any
| day (or mercury-arc, as well). When my town converted, they
| picked neutral-white lights for the side streets and ones with
| a very slight yellow tint for the major streets. Either of
| these is far better as far as I'm concerned.
|
| Even the old mercury-arc lights weren't that great - either
| sickly greenish or a color-corrected version that was blue-
| white. The 175W mercury-arc streetlight on my corner was
| replace by a 40W LED, with better lighting to boot.
|
| Low-pressure sodium is even worse - an absolute monochromatic
| yellow. If you forgot where you parked your red car, good luck
| finding it. Been there, done that.
| mint2 wrote:
| Actually neutral white and blue tinged white (the most common
| led shade) is terrible for night vision, glare, and light
| pollution all due to the actual physics of light.
| cs702 wrote:
| Well, I for one don't think everything is ugly.
|
| Apple devices and stores look clean and elegant to me.
|
| Tesla vehicles feel and look simple and beautiful to me.
|
| If given a choice, I'd rather live in new buildings with bright,
| light-filled interiors than in old buildings with darker, mustier
| interiors.
|
| I could provide more examples of things I don't think are ugly.
| The main point is this:
|
| _Beauty is in the eye of the beholder._
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Tesla vehicles look beautiful to me.
|
| As you say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder--but,
| seriously, the Cybertruck as a thing of beauty? (This is from
| someone who actually liked the boxy car designs of old.)
| pixl97 wrote:
| Every family has that ugly cousin no one talks about.
| xprn wrote:
| Obligatory "if you don't know who it is, it's you"
| cs702 wrote:
| Yes, the Cybertruck looks great to me.
|
| Is it different? Yes. But ugly? Not in my view.
|
| Have you seen it in person?
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Have you seen it in person?
|
| I have not. I can't imagine it improving that much in
| person, but who knows? Anyway, whether I think it's ugly,
| in person or from afar, is not the issue; I was surprised
| that someone found it beautiful (which is different from
| just not being ugly), but I certainly don't mean to argue
| the point.
| lijok wrote:
| I find it beautiful as well, but beauty for me transcends
| the visual and into the conceptual / historical.
|
| It's interesting, unique, strange and therefore
| beautiful.
| callalex wrote:
| I had the opposite experience. I thought pictures on the
| internet looked neat because it was unique. In person it
| causes an almost physical reaction in me because I found it
| so hideous.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| Cybertruck fan here, I wouldn't describe it as either ugly or
| beautiful. It is bold and different, and utterly unlike
| anything else out there, much the same way modern
| architecture was 70 years ago and modern art 100+ years ago.
| I find this very appealing.
| at_compile_time wrote:
| If you don't like the Cybertruck, you can close your browser
| tab and not be offended further. Tesla 3s and Ys exist in the
| real world, and they're more pleasant to look at than most
| vehicles.
| Yujf wrote:
| Are they? Something about them seems off to me, but I cant
| put my finger on it
| xyzelement wrote:
| No grille in the front?
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Model S looks good to me, but others look kind of funny or
| not in correct proportions and the front lights of those
| are also weird.
| vagab0nd wrote:
| Your comment just proved the point of gp. Even if you think
| something is ugly, why not acknowledge the fact that some
| might consider it beautiful?
| GolfPopper wrote:
| The Cybertruck looks like something from the Rigger Black
| Book for _Shadowrun_. (Whether that 's good or bad is, as
| JadeNB says, left as an exercise for the viewer. But for me
| it definitely fits its name.)
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| What gets me about the Cybertruck is that it feels like it's
| _almost_ a cool design. I feel like if I squint my eyes, I
| can almost see a modern version of the DeLorean design (which
| was cool as hell). But it went wrong somewhere, and Tesla
| took a left turn into the ugly zone.
| sph wrote:
| Dupe from last year, 500+ comments:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33894679
|
| They _lied_ on the publication date.
| ojintoad wrote:
| Odd, do you mean they lied back in 2022? Definitely confusing
| at the least!
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20221206160651/https://www.nplus...
| argiopetech wrote:
| Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
| stupidity.
|
| -- Hanlon, Robert
| accoil wrote:
| I dunno. I can see how Dec 2022 could be Winter 2023 for New
| York, but basing publication dates off seasons seems
| purposefully vague.
| iamgopal wrote:
| Why good looking car expensive when cheap car and expensive car
| used same Color steel and lights ?
| z5h wrote:
| When we believed that our institutions (religious, governmental,
| cultural, corporate) took care of us (whether or not they did),
| we would invest our efforts in return. The jig is up. Why invest
| more than "minimum viable caring" at this point?
|
| As an Ontarian who recently took a road trip through Quebec
| (where a faith in culture still presides), it seemed like there
| was more "giving a shit" about all institutions and it came
| through in quality across the board.
| mglz wrote:
| My crackpot theory: This is in part due to CAD:
|
| * Colors other than gray don't look nice in CAD and aren't the
| default.
|
| * It's super easy to just stack a bunch of rectangles (looking at
| you, architects...)
|
| * You can chamfer and fillet but that's the end of what most
| people do. More complex shapes are hard to due due to the clunky
| spline tools. Hence elaborate ornaments are left out.
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| Not such a crackpot theory in my opinion - the tools we use to
| communicate design surely will influence what we design.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Aesthetics has always seemed like the front line of the war for
| civilization against chaos.
| corethree wrote:
| There's a stupid article like this every decade where the writer
| thinks he's being edgy when he's actually just regurgitating the
| same shit spewed by regular people every 10 years. Beauty is in
| the eye of the beholder, but really stupid people who write
| articles like this think their eyes are the center of the
| universe.
|
| Take a look at this from over a decade ago:
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/5gynqq/what-v11n11
|
| Part of the article laments how the shape of cars have turned
| into "cough drops" and "globular tears". Clever but I can also
| write a edgy article about how idiots in the past designed cars
| as if they were hideous boxes and the concept of a curve was too
| advanced for their square minds to comprehend.
| TheCleric wrote:
| Call me overly practical, but as long as we have a shortage of
| housing, build all the ugly you can. I'd rather have people
| housed in ugly buildings they can afford over waiting for
| something aesthetically beautiful.
| keenmaster wrote:
| It's possible for everyone to like beautiful things but not build
| them when given the chance.
|
| The "problem" is, everyone has a different preference.
|
| Let's say I like mid-century modern, and spend $75,000 extra on
| building (tastefully) in that style.
|
| Now it's 10 years later and I want to sell the house. A potential
| buyer likes everything _except_ the mid-century modern. Their
| favorite style is neoclassical.
|
| To them, mid-century modern styling has a value of zero or even
| -$25,000. So if I didn't build in that style, they might have
| been willing to pay 75k-100k more.
|
| The paradox here is that a divergence in preferences, due to
| cultural atomization and the internet, has led to lower returns
| on investment in beauty (and atrophying of craftsmanship and the
| ability to build beautifully to begin with).
|
| If you ask me, a _tasteful_ aesthetic monoculture is a good
| thing, and can result in timeless beauty which will be
| appreciated long after that monoculture evolves /ends. Sameness
| is not inherently bad! See: Florence, Venice, Andalucia, 1800's
| Paris, etc...
| barrysteve wrote:
| All the new builds in my area share a rendered concrete and jail-
| bar fencing aesthetic that is monstorous, undesirable and ugly.
| There are no sensible features to look at. The corners of the
| build look so sharp, you'd cut your hand if you touched them.
|
| The hundred-million dollar shopping centre was done up last year
| and it removed most of the internal landmarks and created a
| series of flat hallways. There is nothing to rest your eyes upon,
| nothing to look at.
|
| It's one flat, dated shop after another. Usually based on some
| dead subculture from 10yrs ago and recent ladies' fashion trends.
|
| The apartments went up as part of the build and that are flat
| cubes, copy pasted with doors and windows cut into a wall behind
| a front patio of flat wooden slats. Minecraft aesthetic for
| ferrari prices.
|
| It is physically irritating to look for a pattern or a boundary
| line or a landmark and find nothing to anchor yourself.
| Everything is textureless and shapeless. I avoid the place.
|
| The concept of an aspirational home is dead in my books. The
| traditional homes may raise the blood pressure a touch too much
| and seem complex.. The contemporary builds are ugly and
| irritating.
|
| A sense of balance, proportion, beauty and differentiated shapes,
| physically calms me. It has to be updated traditional. Neo
| classical or french colonial or some such new variation on an
| outdated style.
| fleventynine wrote:
| We need more housing, and we needed it yesterday. Ugly is better
| than nothing. Folks that care about aesthetic quality over
| quantity are part of the problem.
| tomcam wrote:
| > WE LIVE IN UNDENIABLY UGLY TIMES. Architecture, industrial
| design, cinematography, probiotic soda branding -- many of the
| defining features of the visual field aren't sending their best.
|
| One of these things is not like the others
| surfingdino wrote:
| I blame the preset hustle.
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