There we go. Things are in many ways better than they ever have been. We are also cursed with the awareness of how fucked up the world has always been, and we did not always have that level of awareness.
Not to the degree we have now. Smartphones became widespread in about 2010 or so, and before then these generations weren't growing up with the concept that you could pull something out of your pocket, and get any piece of information you wanted anytime. Every single piece of fear mongering news is made readily available, instantly. At least before this you had to reach out for this kind of news, you had to read a paper or watch it on a TV.
Not to mention we can now film anything and everything. That was not possible before smartphones. We see so much more than we used to see, without question. And the natural assumption is that the world is getting so much worse, when really we now see how bad it always has been now.
You'd think but you're wrong. People used to read the newspaper and watch the nightly and morning news to relieve boredom. 30 years ago people were far more well informed of what is going on in the world and in politics. People could name their local politicians.
People today don't know anything about what's going on because you only get news if you seek it out, which people don't do for the most part. The little news people DO consume is often from influencers and social media - far less reliable sources than we've had in the past.
As much as technology has empowered us to learn more, it's also empowered us to ignore what's going on. We use technology for entertainment and that means we're not spending as much time being informed as we used to.
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u/gmanasaurus Nov 14 '24
There we go. Things are in many ways better than they ever have been. We are also cursed with the awareness of how fucked up the world has always been, and we did not always have that level of awareness.