Posted: 5/21/2026 7:12:46 AM EDT
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I don’t know if anyone’s as in to this as I have become, but the concept of zeitgeist has fascinated me since I was a kid and read it somewhere. One thing that I find fascinating about it, is that terminology pops up, gets used a lot by people, then it runs it’s course and fades out. My most recent one, though, feels suited for this forum. For the last, oh, 18 months now, I’ve felt - perceived - that time is passing by faster than it used to. I want to caveat this, I am not saying time actually is passing by faster, only that my perception of it feels that way. The thing is, now I’m hearing the term “Time Dilation” in some of the woo-ier pods and in discussions with people. That’s where it makes me sit up and take notice. Are others feeling that way? Jeremy Corbell on the A52 podcast sure seemed to feel that way, he kept saying it repeatedly. I did a cursory google search but returned nothing of note. Grok said Yes, “time dilation” has seen clear spikes in popular interest over the years, primarily driven by major movies, with smaller recurring bumps from sci-fi, education, and real-world science tie-ins. with the biggest spike being the release of the movie “Interstellar”. Are there any like this for you folks? I don’t think this quite qualifies as a synchronicity, not by it’s purest definition… Anyway - do you have any terms you’re seeing pop up that feel like they’re out of nowhere but maybe aren’t? I know this is a highly intangible and personal thread so if it goes away without responses it’s fine. |
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Beautifying the world one logo at a time since 1993.
Soli Deo Gloria
Beautifying the world one logo at a time since 1993.
Soli Deo Gloria
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Well, seeing as how people in general are getting dumber at an exponential rate, I'd say it's unlikely they understand the true concept of time dilation. I'd say it's much more likely that spending 20 hours a day staring at your phone seems to make days go by quicker. |
Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good Use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.---John Adams
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The thing about actual time dilation is you'd basically be unaware it was happening to you. You exist in the "spacetime" that's being altered, so to you it would seem perfectly normal. Only an outside observer could see you moving faster or slower. That's the nature of relativity in a nutshell. For any given observer, everything feels perfectly normal to them, but things may be behaving differently around them, i.e. relative to them, to the point it could be noticable. Think of the idea as presented in media. In Interstellar, two of the characters go down to that water planet in the gravity well of the black hole. For them, a short period of time passes. For the guy back on the ship, it's seven years (or something like that). The guy on the ship, had he been able to see his friends, would have witnessed them moving as if they were all but frozen. He could look away, come back the next day, and their positions would have changed, but only slightly. The people on the planet would have seen the opposite, their friend moving as if he were the Flash. Both would have thought everything was normal where they were, from their perspective. Now, people's perception of time is highly variable. That's an entirely different subject. But no, you haven't experienced time dilation in any way you could perceive. That is to say, you experience it constantly, but you can't actually know of that experience. If you stand on a tall mountain, time moves faster for you than for someone standing at sea level. If you fly in a plane, time moves faster for you than for someone on the ground. But the amount is negligible. The person who's "time travelled" the most (last I checked) was some cosmonaut who spent a year plus whipping around the Earth in a station. He's something like 6 milliseconds younger than the rest of us. Or some such equally pointless number. Time dilation is a real thing, the clocks on GPS satellites have to be constantly updated because they're so far away from Earth and moving so fast that the effect is noticeable. A day or two with a lack of updates and your GPS would be off by miles. But actual, noticeable (by our brains) time dilation effects don't really kick in until about 75% the speed of light, or being in a ridiculous gravity well. Fun fact. At a certain 99.99999(not sure how many 9's)% of C, you could travel the entire length of the visible universe in your lifetime. Easily. Except the visible universe is always expanding, so you might not reach the end of it, and from the standpoint of a "stationary" observer, it would take you 93,000,000,000 years. Plus. |
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Chakravartin of the Feculent Multiversal Litterbox
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Gurkhan of the Illimitable Feline Hordes
Chakravartin of the Feculent Multiversal Litterbox
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Gurkhan of the Illimitable Feline Hordes
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I am noticing this. I also am aware of the saying that "life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes" but there are months that seem to blink past and others that go at normal speed, like somebody edited out a couple weeks. No drug use or other things changing to cause that to happen, but being MIB Flashy lighted would explain it. |
The person who complains most, and is the most critical of others has the most to hide.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
| Inter dimensional is becoming wide spread, but virtually no one quite knows what that means so it gets used to describe everything from shadow biospheres, dark matter/energy, vibrations, to pocket universes and multiverses. I’ve even heard it called “the spaces in between” or Heaven and Hell. |
“How strange it is that man on earth should roam,
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
His future doom which is but to awake.” - John Keats
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
His future doom which is but to awake.” - John Keats
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Originally Posted By intheburbs: Well, seeing as how people in general are getting dumber at an exponential rate, I'd say it's unlikely they understand the true concept of time dilation. I'd say it's much more likely that spending 20 hours a day staring at your phone seems to make days go by quicker. This was my first thought reading the OP. I know people who wake up and scroll. Get to work early to sit in their car and scroll. Scroll every minute of the 40 minutes of break time during work hours. Then are scrolling before they punch out. Then go home and scroll untill they fall asleep. That sounds like a recipe for life flying by without being aware of it. I dont feel nor have ever felt time speeding up for me. Ever since ive been aware of time it had always been "time flies" and that's it. It absolutely feels like time is hauling ass and Christmas was two months ago. But when I focus and think about it I can remember everything that happened and it doesnt feel like time went by any faster than usual from my perspective. 2016 sounds not too long ago untill I think about it. To be more on topic Its easier and faster than ever to have a flash in the pan phrase or word surge in popularity and fizzle out in a month. LLMs catch on and repeat/repost. People want to be on top of trends so they hop on the wagon. Some stuff sticks around and other stuff fades away Thats enough rambling time to go to sleep |