I’m trying to find a phrase to describe an important phenomenon: When we fix a problem, we forget it. Pop culture forgets, and the mass media forgets, and young people never learn about the problem or how it was solved. Can you help suggest a name for this phenomenon? Read more here:
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Invisibility of solved problems.
Blindness to hidden help.
The privilege of ignorance.
(5/5)
"Lösungsbedingte Problemverdrängungslogik"
Are you including the fact that, for many people, the problem wasn't solved: rather, it never existed and so we shouldn't listen to "doommongers" about pandemics, climate change, etc. Or is that a different phenomenon
dying from a cut today (thanks antibiotics!)
Malthusian economics (thanks ammonia!)
rotting teeth (thanks fluoride!)
(all I can think of are examples)
Generation 0: have little, work long hours, sacrifice for kids
Gen 1: great education and better SOL, parent-inspired work ethic, tho slightly resentful
Gen 2: better SOL still, grandparents seen as “cranky”
Gen 3: We deserve all we have. Darn immigrants.
”FIXGOTTEN"
There you go.
Because part of it is people who *do* remember come to believe it was never really a problem to begin with.
'fixed so forgotten' is a tiny bit more specific
(we definitely need to fill the ozone memoryhole)
Oxymandiamnesia just rolls off the tongue
https://bsky.app/profile/dinahrose.bsky.social/post/3lp2ojucy6c2s
And once fixed, they are forgotten. So we get to do measles again.
Everyone understands that you have to pay your electric bill, or else your lights will go out. You don't need to experience being cut off, to get that.
But push the same concept just a LITTLE BIT into the abstract, and people will forget. (1/2)
Failing to understand that is just as stupid as saying "we wasted that money on that utility bill, because look, the lights are still on."
Or "Mnemosyne's Revenge" To rope in an ancient Greek Titan or Goddess.
Ooh, ooh, "Mnemosyne's Bug"- A serious flaw in our practical, cultural memories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemosyne
On a more serious note, along with Y2K, The Polio effect as we seem to be forgetting how horrible it is as a disease, & how vital vaccination was for removing it as an issue (my dad had nearly a year off school when he was a kid because of it, and he was one of the lucky ones
Even the COVID vaccine belongs in that group. Unthinkable achievements that moved the needle. Planting native grasses to end the Dust Bowl years, etc.
@adamcsharp.bsky.social
Generational memory loss?
It feels like once events are two generations in the past they become figments of history, and lessons to be forgotten, to those who haven’t really studied history.
Just for the sake of brainstorming, how about "lost wins"?
Unlike, say, 'resolved' or 'answered', it concentrates on the sense that people are at ease with the answer, not that there was a fight.
How could one forget Ozonefest 2015? "I was born in the great Ozonefest." "My grandparents met at Ozonefest15!"
It's simple and it's memeable and people generally know what Y2K was and so people can write little info comics about it.
Although the thread is chock-full of great suggestions.
Zeigarnick Effect ?
Post solutional amnesia is an awful way to say it. Hmmmm.
when things work well, people forget how they can break down. the reason companies do dumb decisions and cut down departments who do upkeep, maintenance etc bc its like out of sight out of mind until shit breaks down & replacement when its broken will always cost more than upkeep
ofc even a culture of remembering doesnt work when you have people who benefit from failure and have money & interests in obstructing repair n improvement *stares at own country*
Or metaphylaxe paradox.