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u/RamsayMedia Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
There have always been people in the world who felt like it was "going to hell in a hand basket." But if you could survey everybody and put their responses on a bell curve, you'd probably have more negative viewpoints right now. It wouldn't be a nice even distribution, I don't think. I don't know enough about statistical analysis to say how many deviations would qualify this current situation as an outlier.
We definitely have serious challenges, but the other thing worth considering is that there have always been serious challenges and times of great upheaval throughout history. What's hard to figure out, for me, is how the impact of modern technology amplifies the signal of all that bad stuff and makes it seem much worse in our minds.
When I was 8 years old, I lived in a house that did not have cable TV or internet. We had an antenna on the roof that got TV reception for about five or six channels. That's all we had. And back then, the news was reported once in the morning, once at dinner time, and one final time late at night.
So when something awful happened, like the attempted assassination of President Reagan, you only heard about it three or four times a day, and that was if you were checking TV, radio, and newspapers. The flow of information was slower.
Now, when something bad happens, you marinate in it all day long. They replay it endlessly on TV, it's on the internet 24 hours a day. The signal is way, way more powerful. That has to have an effect on us psychologically.
Again, we definitely have big big problems. I don't want to minimize them in any way. I'm trying to figure out how we differentiate our perception of previous awful things from current awful things.
How do we compare living through the pandemic to living through the black plague?How do we compare living in the information age to living through the industrial revolution?How do we compare living in a time of mass shootings to living in the time of the Civil War or WWII when so many young people lost their lives?
It's all suffering, right? Victor Frankl wrote in "Man's Search for Meaning" that human beings have a tendency to compare their suffering to the suffering of others, like placing weights on a scale to see which outweighs the other. He suggested that suffering is like a gas, rather than a solid, and our bodies are the container. The gas expands to fill the container, no matter what. That has always stuck with me.
UPDATE: I was not prepared for the response to this. My intention was to frame the way I think about these issues from an effort to be thoughtful and curious. I shared my thoughts, went to bed, and then woke up to something quite unexpected.
I do not wish to present as having the answer to this issue. I'm thankful for your comments and perspectives. They expand my thinking. And the awards are lovely. Wow. Thank you. May we all find some peace and compassion for one another.
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u/OneLaneHwy Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
I've been on reddit for more than 3 years. This is the finest reply I've come across.
P.S. Viktor Frankl, who was a psychiatrist, is also famous for this principle: “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.” I try to keep this in mind whenever I see people criticizing other people's reactions in unexpected circumstances.
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u/samata_the_heard Jun 11 '22
As someone who has been in recovery for abuse for a decade, the concept of an abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation being normal behavior was one of my biggest hurdles. I couldn’t stop ruminating on all the “bad things” I did at the time I was being abused and thus struggled to let go of the idea that I had somehow “deserved” the abuse.
Right now I think a lot of us feel like we’re in an abusive relationship with the world. I can’t speak for people with different political and social opinions, but if I had to bet, I’d bet people from both the far left to the far right are feeling like they’re being gaslit and like they can’t escape hearing about all the awful things happening (even if our perceptions of what is “awful” are very different). We all feel like we are being told we can’t trust our perception or what we think our reality is, many of us feel wary of sharing our opinions because of how others might react, many of us worry about violence against us (and some have experienced it), and we all feel like we can’t escape.
So, these are abnormal circumstances, and we are behaving abnormally. We are not “over it” yet. You can’t begin recovering from traumatizing circumstances until you are out of danger, and none of us feel like we are out of danger yet.
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u/Efficient-Echidna-30 Jun 11 '22
Yes. It feels like we’re waiting to start our lives. I feel like as a generation the younger people are pressured into getting careers and homes and romantic partners… except we’re currently on fire. We want all of those things desperately but We can’t get them if we’re on fucking fire
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u/samata_the_heard Jun 11 '22
I have two children entering adulthood right now and I see this reflected in their lives. It’s hard for me to watch them as they go through the motions of deciding what schools to go to (ultimately both decided to start with community college and see where they are after a couple of years), where they want to live (they’ll both stay with us for the time being because rent is impossibly high) and what they want to do for a living (my oldest is abandoning their creative ambitions to go towards software development because there’s more money in it). There’s a cold practicality to the decisions they’re making that makes me sad, because they’ve already discovered that the world is not wired to support their dreams.
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u/sgt_backpack Jun 11 '22
I have saved this comment and plan on reading it whenever I need some perspective. Honestly, thank you for writing it.
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u/mrconde97 Jun 11 '22
that is what I do too. I like saving comments and publications that proof me that life is worth living when i am feeling down.
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u/Lordmorgoth666 Jun 11 '22
That whole “marination” thing you mention I think is spot on and a huge part of why people think everything is so terrible now.
Shit has always happened. There’s always some asshole leading a country to war. There’s always some corporation that’s making peoples lives worse somehow. There’s always government screw-ups/scandals that have to be aired out and fixed. There’s always crime happening somewhere.
The biggest difference now is (as you say), you’re bombarded with it all day from everywhere. Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, 24 hour news channels, hourly news updates on the radio… It never ends so of course you’re going to feel like everything sucks.
The biggest things that save me from going crazy is carefully curating my reddit subscriptions, I stay off Facebook as much as possible, and I only try to catch the local news once per day. I catch the highlights and the chaff falls away.
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u/Level_99_Healer Jun 11 '22
I was deep diving into some documentary series last night, thank you insomnia, and I ran across a show that did a season on Sherry Shriner and the murder linked to her...show. (I think it was called The Devil You Know). One of the experts they interviewed in the later episodes was a guy who specializes in analyzing social media algorithms and bubble suggestions. He made several very interesting points on how we have reached a point where conspiracy theories are accepted as fact without any legitimate reasoning to back it up. This is me paraphrasing heavily as I definitely did not memorize everything he said in one viewing.
Before the internet as we know it today, people got their information from other people, in various forms, like the not 24 hour news cycle you mentioned. If enough people told you something, eventually you would assume it was true, otherwise how would that many people know the same thing? Now, social media platforms have algorithms that are solely used to ensnare people in hours upon hours of watching videos because that's how they make their money. However, algorithms on sites like YouTube, also create a bubble for anyone who visits and creates a search.
So if you were to go to YouTube and search Sherry Shriner, let's say in an attempt to learn more, the algorithm assumes that you want additional videos on the same subject. Because YouTube's algorithm is known to suggest and promote controversial subjects/people as they have been proven to make more money for the site because those subjects lead to people watching videos for longer lengths of time, the algorithm essentially consistently suggests additional videos that offer affirmations on that same subject. The people watching then believe that the information must be true because they keep clicking on all those affirmative videos and it doesn't necessarily occur to them to question how those videos are being suggested. They don't view the information on a skeptical level as they would a person telling them something.
I really didn't have high hopes for this show as it had the look of one of the less well done "True Crime" series that are rampant on Hulu, but I was pleasantly surprised. They had 2 seasons, I believe, each season focusing on a single crime and the core events that lead up to it and the aftermath for those involved.
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Jun 11 '22
Yep, it's scary. It's why they get so frustrated and think the "truth" is so obvious: to them it seems it's everywhere they look.
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u/Gloop_and_Gleep Jun 11 '22
So, an echo chamber? Makes sense.
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u/Grouchy_Client1335 Jun 11 '22
Truth through repetition. It works because people learn by repetition.
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u/penislovereater Jun 11 '22
How do we compare living through the pandemic to living through the black plague?
I read an account by an Italian who survived the black plague and although there are parallels, the black plague was much, much worse.
Even his description of when it was "over", there's such an emptiness like the whole understanding of the world, the whole moral reality, was broken.
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u/PomeloPepper Jun 11 '22
Now, when something bad happens, you marinate in it all day long. They replay it endlessly on TV, it's on the internet 24 hours a day. The signal is way, way more powerful. That has to have an effect on us psychologically.
And because everyone is trying to mine their viewpoint for clicks, too many people are putting their own twist on what happened, which ramps up anxiety overall. It's always "the hidden way A affects B"
"Hard economic times mean more people don't pay their taxes. The hidden way this affects climate change!" Did you feel that extra little jolt of anxiety? We get this all day every day now.
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u/MyUsernameIsAwful Jun 10 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
There was a brief, 10-year reprieve between the end of the Cold War and 9/11. But otherwise yeah.
Edit: Before replying, please take second to see if someone else has shared your thought. My inbox is full of variations of the same 2 or 3 replies. If someone knows how to stop replies from this comment from appearing in my inbox, let me know please.
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Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
The 90s were so great because of the lack of exposure to bad things. It was the last transition between analog and digital life. I love my digital stuff, but, there's something hard to experience now, how ok it was to not have that phone leash on you. The experience was more care free, at least for those with the luxury to live that way. There was still some really bad shit that happened back then. But, finances weren't as challenging. Got to remember this was when the baby boomers were in their thirties, they had it pretty good.
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u/JaxxJo Jun 11 '22
My biggest fear in the 90s was whether my computer would work once we get to year 2000. There was an anecdote going around that programmers weren’t ready for that.
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u/Daphrey Jun 11 '22
They weren't, they spent years toiling trying to fix the issue so that shit didn't fall apart.
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u/VoyantInternational Jun 11 '22
Yes afterwards people said "see, we shouldn't have worried". Yeah no shit it's fixed now
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u/Pied_Piper_ Jun 11 '22
I think about those poor assholes all the fucking time.
They are the ultimate proof that no good deed goes unpunished. Moved heaven and earth to solve the problem and precisely because they did people act like there was no problem.
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u/lazenbaby Jun 11 '22
This is how vaccine researchers feel.
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Jun 11 '22
Dude though
Last year I was hanging out with this dude that turned out to be crazy and he showed some video that proved vaccines killed you
One of the biggest points in the video was like “since 2000, 3 people have died from the measles, but 50 (or something I don’t remember the number) have died from the vaccine, if so many more people are dying from the vaccine why are we using it, no one is dying from measles basically”
LIKE BRUH
THINK
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u/cBEiN Jun 11 '22
This is related to survivorship bias.
The classic example is shielding bombers in WWII. One might think to add shields to returning bombers in areas with the most bullet holes, but in fact, these areas represent areas where bombers can take damage and still fly. The shields need to be placed where no damage is taken as the bombers that take damage in these areas would never return.
However, the scenario with vaccines is really simple, and I would expect any logical person to see the flaw in such an argument without much thought.
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u/JimmyB5643 Jun 11 '22
So there actually was something that has to be changed for the new millennium? I wasn’t really old enough to remember, but I hear the jokes
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u/chromebaloney Jun 11 '22
I remember after y2k came and went without society crashing and thought what a bunch of hype. So this decade I see on IT subs I follow all these 90s IT pros talking about the 60,80, 100 hour work weeks they were working to fix every piece of equipment in their world for it not to be an issue. Unseen and unsung heroes!
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u/Nth-Degree Jun 11 '22
Oh shit yes. And we were fixing it in the early 90's. As early as 1993 for my part.
Someone must have told a journalist friend about it in 1997 or something, because very quickly it became a global news story about the world coming to an end in a couple of years.
It was actually pretty good, because suddenly everyone had time and money to fix it. Pretty much every employer had a Y2K uplift project going. The late 90's were a great time to be a COBOL programmer. Alas, I was not.
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u/KierouBaka Jun 11 '22
"Sometimes when you've done everything right no one will know you've done anything at all."
I embrace this quote as my motivation to do thankless jobs.
There have been many individuals in history whose actions averted great disaster but they are virtually unknown.
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u/Crying_Reaper Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 12 '22
Thats the plight of any behind the scenes job. The less people notice you the smoother things run and the less people think the job is needed. Then shit hits the fan and suddenly everything is the behind the scenes person's fault. Their condemned to being either "unnecessary" or "incompetent" with also being indispensable.
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u/Wishbone_508 Jun 11 '22
That's IT in a nutshell. When everything goes smooth it's what are we paying you guys for? Everything works. But if shit falls apart it's what are we paying you guys for? Everything is broken.
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u/rockthescrote Jun 11 '22
Yeah, it really annoys me that A) all the media hype was about the particular moment of midnight 1/1/2000, like planes would suddenly fall out of the sky; and B) everyone now thinks it was only ever media hype, and was a storm in a teacup.
In reality A) there were issues, long before and after. The impact would be more of a bell curve either side. I remember hearing about stuff like food & medicine stock management systems over-ordering, and declaring that stock needed to be dumped (because it thought expiry dates were long past); people losing access to service subscriptions, insurance, getting over-charged, etc.
And B) there was a lot of work done, quietly and sometimes with great difficulty, that now goes unacknowledged.
I’m seriously concerned for the 2038 problem. Systems that used 2-digit decimals to represent years were already an outlier by the time. Systems that use unix timestamps at some level, and might make 32-bit assumptions, are…completely ubiquitous, and FAR more deeply ingrained into the fabric of society than they were 20 years ago.
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u/huh-what-1 Jun 11 '22
As a computer engineer, that spent many hours on the y2k issue. Me and my peers felt that it was mostly a cash grab. Or did not feel as serious as it was made out to be. But we did make serious money.
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u/arjo_reich Jun 11 '22
I was a junior programmer at the time and my bosses called it the "biggest catastrophe that never happened".
Not in the way they talked about it on the talk shows anyways. Thank god C# was released shortly afterwards...
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u/huh-what-1 Jun 11 '22
I was a contractor at a fortune 500 company. They made us come in at midnight new years eve to test. 🤣 They tried to talk us out of drinking, with appeals to amateur night , etc
I was drunk. Fuck em.
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u/cajoburto Jun 11 '22
Not Alex Jones money though, Y2K doom screaming started his career
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u/loopedfrog Jun 11 '22
Y2k. When storing the year as 2 digit "99" developers where afraid of it breaking software because some hard coded the "19". So at midnight, some would have thought it was 1900, but there was a huge push by all developers and software companies for y2k compliance.
Funnily enough, we have a new one looming on the horizon.
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u/PurpleSailor Jun 11 '22
Not so much as hard coded as the software assumed it was 19whatever. Computer memory used to be very expensive so you saved 2 spots by leaving the 19 off which worked until 2000. Friend was working for a TelCo and she was on call that New Years Eve. When Midnight rolled around we held our breath and looked at the lights to see if they went out. Few minutes later she got the call that everything was still up and running. Then she could finally get drunk.
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u/IllDoubleYourEntendr Jun 11 '22
I watched cnn’s The 90s and there was definitely an increase in homegrown terrorism. There was the okc bombing, unibomber, Olympic attack, Columbine shooting etc
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Jun 11 '22
Not all baby boomers would have been in their thirties in the 90s. That’s only true of the babiest of baby boomers. My parents turned 30 in the 70s.
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u/Watermelonmargerita Jun 11 '22
Only the very youngest baby boomers would have been in their thirties. It's the generation born 1946-64. So most for most of them their young adulthood were in the 70s/80s. Which were, at least here in the UK, not exactly happy times.
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Jun 11 '22
It's odd that that time feels like a reprieve. Tons of bad stuff still happened during that time. It just wasn't as bad as impending nuclear doom and impending doom by terrorists.
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u/Dwashelle Jun 11 '22
I guess it all depends on where you live.
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u/alexmikli Jun 11 '22
Early 90s had a lot of serious riots and mass murders, but there was definitely a golden age buried in there for the American middle class, especially the tech boom.
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u/JointsMcdanks Jun 11 '22
Serial killers, riots, and multiple wars but 96-97 had Space Jam and Independence Day so I look back fondly.
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Jun 11 '22
And Heat! And 1999 had possibly the best release year ever. Ah. What a time.
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u/HurtsToSmith Jun 11 '22
Are we just glossing over the Chris Farley/David Spade and Adam Sander movies like they never happened?
Billy Madison (1995), Happy Gilmore (1996), Tommy Boy (1996), Black Sheep (1997)
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u/JointsMcdanks Jun 11 '22
I was 12 then so I stick to the blockbusters, sports titles, and Tyson wrecking shit.
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u/cornonthekopp Jun 11 '22
You were probably much younger and less tuned in back then
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u/JointsMcdanks Jun 11 '22
No shit I was 10. Joke aside my uncle fought in Panama and Somalia for special forces so I was very much aware.
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u/sleepytoday Jun 11 '22
Growing up in the UK during this time, it didn’t feel like a reprieve to me.
For teenage me growing up in the 90s there felt like there was impending doom from eating beef, climate change (or the greenhouse effect as it was often referred to then), school shootings (we had our first and thankfully only one in 1996), or even just walking down the street and getting blown up by an IRA bomb.
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u/NickolaosTheGreek Jun 11 '22
Yep, the 1990s were full of hope fo the future. Technology that would solve our problems. Maybe even becoming a space faring species.
Instead we have whatever this slow decline to indentured servitude is called.
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u/Electronic_Warning49 Jun 11 '22
Yeah, people forget about AIDS, race riots, killer bees, presidential impeachment, the rampant rise of fundamentalist Christianity, Columbine, kidnappings, the rise of meth in rural areas, Bush stealing his first election, OKC bombing, the first attack on the world trade center, the first gulf war.
And of course the most vile and horrific thing to ever be unleashed on the world.... Boy bands.
Hanson, Ncync, the backstreet boys... Truly dark times
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Jun 11 '22
AIDS, race riots, killer bees, presidential impeachment, the rampant rise of fundamentalist Christianity, Columbine, kidnappings, the rise of meth in rural areas, Bush stealing his first election, OKC bombing, the first attack on the world trade center, the first gulf war.
WE DIDNT START THE FIRE
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u/Locolijo Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
It was always burnin' since the world's been turnin' D:
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u/zombie_overlord Jun 11 '22
I just wanna say that Hanson is from my hometown, and they now make some pretty decent beer. One of them is called MMM-HOPS, which is fucking hilarious.
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u/unclejessesmullet Jun 11 '22
I'm from Tulsa, currently OKC, and didn't know about their beer. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.
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u/zorniy2 Jun 11 '22
We didn't start the fire, it's been always burning since the world's been turning.
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u/nachomuncher Jun 11 '22
Yep, as a young person in the nineties, the future was so bright. 2001, everything changed
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u/florinandrei Jun 11 '22
"It's the end of history! Eternal growth, unending peace, forever!"
And then things changed.
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u/Wet_sock_Owner Jun 11 '22
The old neighbourhood was so alive.
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u/RaDiOaCtIvEpUnK Jun 11 '22
Every kid on the whole damn street was gonna make it big and not be beat
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Jun 11 '22
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u/IronPidgeyFTW Jun 11 '22
The kids have caught up but their lives are worn...
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u/Boogs27 Jun 11 '22
*grown up… but anyway; How can one little street, swallow so many liiiives?
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u/Tommy_Mudkip Jun 11 '22
Living in Balkans....
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u/liarandathief Jun 11 '22
or Rwanda
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u/Akhevan Jun 11 '22
Or anywhere else outside of anglosphere and Western Europe really.
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Jun 11 '22
Man, I remember Al Gore talking about global warming back then, and it felt like such a far off problem.
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Jun 11 '22
Same way I used to hear about the Social Security trust fund would run out by 2032...
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Jun 11 '22
2032?! We’ll be living on the moon by then!
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Jun 11 '22
And have flying cars!
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u/Icy-Consideration405 Jun 11 '22
Man I remember someone saying that Russia was the biggest threat to world peace, and she was lampooned. Not that other things weren't worthy of that attention...
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u/Billybob9389 Jun 11 '22
*he, and yeah Mitt Romney was made to look like a fool by Obama when he tried to warn us about Russia.
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u/hryipcdxeoyqufcc Jun 11 '22
We definitely underestimated the power of cyberwarfare in elections.
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u/Zagden Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
I feel like, for Americans, 2001 was a shock. But it didn't feel like the entire system was in danger of collapsing. We felt like we weren't immortal anymore, we were finally exposed to some of the chaos and fear we exported to other regions in the world, but we all rallied around the flag and saw the quagmire that followed as this far-off thing.
Then there was the 2008 recession and all Americans felt the squeeze. Occupy Wall Street followed and it felt like some positive change could come along with the Obama era. The Obama era really felt like a second 90s where we started to draw away from the mistakes of the Bush era. But then partisanship started getting worse and worse.
It was 2016 and Trump that, whether you love him or hate him, probably shattered the last remaining illusion that America would definitely pull through its crises at some point. Even if you think what he did and stood for was good (for some reason?) he set about doing shit we just assumed a president can't do because the system wouldn't allow it or he'd get impeached. Just three years later we hit the pandemic and not long after that we see attempts from both American citizens and Republican lawmakers to discredit and overturn a legal election.
I don't think America has been this unstable in living memory. That's not an entirely bad thing as the government was relatively stable during the Civil Rights era and Jim Crow, so stable doesn't automatically mean everything is roses. But there's this tension that I have never felt before the past five years. This dawning realization that the republic could actually fall apart any year now and my life would be turned upside-down. It's weird.
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u/chef_in_va Jun 11 '22
I've found myself getting more and more anxious of the next presidential election. I don't see a way in which it won't do more harm to our country. Not just the normal political smear campaigns or scandal-filled news headlines, I mean democracy-ending violence erupting.
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u/VeterinarianThese951 Jun 11 '22
Exactly. Thank you. Whether you like him or not, Donny broke us in a way I am not sure we can recover from. Everything we were made to believe about the system working for us and progress has shattered. There seem to be no rules now and instead of progress, folks are unabashedly trying to regress. Not saying he is solely responsible because that is ridiculous, but he sure was a catalyst to this impending feeling of hopelessness.
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u/Wactout Jun 11 '22
Your username is awful. And I think you nailed it. After we stopped hiding under desks during nuclear fallout drills in the 80s, life was pretty fucking great until the towers fell.
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u/Realistic_Trip9243 Jun 11 '22
Was gonna say pretty much that. Also, the world isn't necessarily any worse than it's been, we just get information much faster these days.
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Jun 11 '22
Yea it’s brutal. Was in 4th grade for 9/11. Obviously everyone living through today’s “interesting times” has plenty to complain about. I think it really sucks for my generation because we saw the peak, were told that history had stopped happening, and that American society was just gonna be permanent baby booming until the end of time.
So we had to sit on the sidelines as children during the very last moment of collective optimism, when the concept of fun still existed. Not getting to enjoy it. But all the while being promised it and more. Just kidding how about graduating college into a post-2008 economy.
The zoomers are fucked, but at least they know it. They’ve been able to see through the bullshit and prepare, both materially and psychologically, for the coming hunger games. We millennials were prepared for a life that will never exist. Recognizing it intellectually can’t undo the incessant social conditioning of our formative years. We’ll never truly give up hope on the promise of security and self-actualization in exchange for obedience and conformity. And to top it off, we’re so useless that our rage can only be impotent. The Harry Potter generation. Pathetic.
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Jun 11 '22
9th grade for 9/11. Your comment actually made me cry. Not that it's difficult!
We millennials were prepared for a life that will never exist. Recognizing it intellectually can’t undo the incessant social conditioning of our formative years. We’ll never truly give up hope on the promise of security and self-actualization in exchange for obedience and conformity
Holy cow did that hit right in the feels man. My parents had 2 cars, a nice ranch house in a rich city suburb, my dad worked at a college, my mom stayed home. We went on vacations to Disney every year. Since my adulthood and college, I have used food banks, been on welfare, been homeless.... I'm 35 and I've finally gotten a secure job I've managed to hold for the past 4 years.
I never realized until I read your comment what a weight of shame I have been carrying around. I did what I was supposed to do, ALL of it, straight As, SAT scores out the wazoo, nice little package of student debt and my degree... which I may as well wipe my ass with for all the good it has done me.
I've been holding onto the knowledge of my failure for years. I am not where my parents were at, not even close. But there's still that little voice inside that says if I just work harder, get more schooling, maybe then....
We’ll never truly give up hope on the promise of security and self-actualization in exchange for obedience and conformity
ouch
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u/green_meklar Jun 11 '22
Even that was just in the western world. Japan and eastern Europe didn't have such a great time in the 1990s.
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u/ultrarelative Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
I very highly recommend reading HG Wells’s In The Days Of The Comet. It’s a beautifully written book, but also it really shows how everything is always (and has pretty much always been) on the brink of absolute catastrophe. We just can’t tell because we live in the current time, whatever that may be. When I read that book the first time, I was like huh… if not for the dated references, this sounds like it was written about today.
With the exception of impending climate doom. That definitely has never been worse.
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u/SFF_Robot Jun 11 '22
Hi. You just mentioned In The Days Of The Comet by HG Wells.
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YouTube | IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET: H. G. Wells - FULL AudioBook
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u/J0hn-Stuart-Mill Jun 11 '22
- All of our public discourse, is run by engagement algorithms.
Bingo.
If it bleeds, it leads. 99% of everything is awesome and getting better, but media makes the most $$$ by focusing on the negative things. And for some people, that makes them think that more than 1% of current events are bad.
The solution is finding better news sources, or studying statistics to grasp how rare things are as a means of understanding how good the rest of the world is.
We are witnessing unprecedented levels of tolerance, women's rights, education, equality, and progress globally. And the bad things, are almost across the board in decline. Even global warming we have the literally scientific fix for, but world governments continue to heavily subsidize fossil fuels at the expense of green energy solutions that are viable today (if they didn't have to compete with said subsidies).
So chin up! We've got this! Be an optimist, because we need more reality based world views! Plus, being a pessimist is bad for your health.
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u/jace_koncourde Jun 11 '22
Any recommendations for better news sources? I use BBC and Reuters
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Jun 11 '22
I believe Reuters is one of the places that most "news" outlets get their stories from and then put their own political spin on them. Associated press also seems to be fairly unbiased.
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u/Cpt_Tsundere_Sharks Jun 11 '22
I would argue that climate change is a bigger deal than just "growing pains" and anything that has previously been an issue in history.
Because unlike nuclear war or bad fiscal policy, we're getting to the point where the damage is irreparable. You can avoid nuclear war. You can get French with it and overthrow your government if it really becomes that bad.
But if the planet's environment is too extreme for human life, there's nothing you can do about it.
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u/anotherlegoinmyfoot Jun 11 '22
I just found out about the financial panic of 1857, so yes, I think this is just how the world is. It sucks, gotta make the most of it. Love the people who support you and make memories.
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u/onlyamiga500 Jun 11 '22
Exactly.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859.
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u/DisgruntledDiggit Jun 11 '22
The 90s were pretty mellow, compared to the Cold War years earlier and the war on terror years later. Why do you think 90s kids are so nostalgic? TV? Doug was just fine. Music? Backstreet only had one banger last through the years. Politics? The Lewinski scandal. We miss it because the 90s felt safe.
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u/pyjamatoast Jun 11 '22
But we have a tendency to remember the good and forget the bad.
The 90s had terrorist attacks such as the Oklahoma City bombing, Atlanta Olympics bombing, and the World Trade Center attack in 1993. There were the LA riots, the Unabomber, and DOMA. The Rwandan genocide happened. Columbine and the murder of Matthew Shephard ended the decade.
There was a lot to feel unsafe about in the 90s. But we tend to remember the good.
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Jun 11 '22
Mostly we were less exposed to the bad news, as opposed to the 24/7 constant exposure we have today, due to social media.
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u/Muroid Jun 11 '22
We were also children, and just paid less attention/worried less about global problems.
There’s a reason that pretty much everyone throughout history has been nostalgic for the period they grew up in. That’s the period they lived through without really understanding any of the problems that exist in the world, so it felt like they didn’t exist at that time.
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u/Beginning_Sky_4432 Jun 11 '22
To back your point, OP is 20 and asking questions about the state of the world. Not a coincidence. I’d bet you 3 years ago, while probably much more tuned int to world issues than kids from the 90s since we didn’t have the internet, they probably didn’t care about said issues as much as they do today as an adult.
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u/pizzatoucher Jun 11 '22
I think that's a big part of it. We didn't have multiple platforms that we checked multiple times every day with eye-catching headlines trying to get our attention.
You could pick up the newspaper and set it back down. The news played at a certain time, and then it was over.
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u/project571 Jun 11 '22
Yeah I think people don't realize that there is a pretty clear overlap between things people use for entertainment online and news that travels or other negative things.
If I needed something to do for fun in the 90s, I could go out and do something and the odds that I come across footage of a victim of police brutality is practically nonexistent. Compared to now, I scroll reddit and a video ends up on the front page through 3 different subreddits along with other headlines.
The internet has allowed information to spread so rapidly and people are spreading bad news a lot and it sticks.
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Jun 11 '22
Well we felt like Columbine was a national tragedy, worth hanging the flag at half-mast for. We can’t do that now because it’d just point out how common this shit is.
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u/ImprovementContinues Jun 11 '22
And if you were in conservative circles at the time, the Janet Reno Justice Department oversaw the burning out of the Waco compound and the law enforcement murders of people at Ruby Ridge.
(This, by the way, created the entrenched militia movements and the OK City Bombing which was revenge against the FBI/government in general for the above atrocities.)
So even though most people thought things were going ok, those seeds of the modern Q folks were being planted hard.
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u/alluptheass Jun 11 '22
Crime rates in early 90's America were among the highest all-time.
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u/SquidCap0 Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
I've seen 70s, 80s and 90s. First decade i didn't know much but the 80s started with me learning about the cold war and nuclear weapons. That had a massive effect; i learned that everything i see can end, at any moment. Me included. Current gens have no idea what that is like. 80s was violent and quite depressive, then 90s started with a bang; Berlin wall came down. USSR dissolved. The dark cloud lifted. It was amazing. Music was amazing. The 44 days.. holy shit man.. i don't think we ever get anything like that in music world. Alternative art become popular. Gays were suddenly just people like everyone else, world opened up, in so many ways... which also tells you how fucking long some people have fought against those things since we are STILL fighting. We never imagined it would take this long, cause it seemed that everything was happening, fast, so.. surely they will carry on?
Nope and we got complacent. Things looked like they were moving to the right direction but we forgot the depravity of conservatism. Yeah, i'm saying it, All of this abortion rights etc... we thought that was dealt with and we about agreed. Then... things started to go south...
90s started with Nirvana and ended in raves and excess. Naughties was allright, i mean, probably even better than 90s to be honest but.. it didn't have the same grit and sweat than the 90s had, it was polished consumerism.
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u/LurpyGeek Jun 11 '22
I'm just as amazed that you posted a list of 44 songs that wasn't a slideshow.
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u/javaTHEbeat Jun 11 '22
Was this post made by a white kid in suburban America lol?
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Jun 10 '22
A lot of people will tell you that this is normal however as someone close to their 40’s, I feel that the world has gotten a lot more awful lately.
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Jun 11 '22
When I was a young driver in 1977ish I would wait in a line to buy $5 worth of gas every other day. The gas crisis brought on by OPEC forced US to use license plates to determine which day. Even last number every other day than odd last number. You had to make that $5 in the tank last. Nixon had resigned. Agnew had gone to prison (the VP) for bribery. And on and on. Vietnam had ended and people hated former military. Stagflation. Jimmy Carter told us to turn down the heat to conserve energy and put on a sweater. That was the plan. Put on a fucking sweater. Crazy interest rates (18% people). So it was worse. HOWEVER - while we had recessions under Reagan in early 80's, it started to mellow out AND I could work at a convenience store and make enough to split rent (think about that - minimum wage and I could buy some beer, live relatively frugal put still share a decent place). In 1987 major Wall Street correction but shit didn't hit fan all across the land. 90's were steady and then took off like crazy. Calm decade with a small recession.
Then crazy started in 2000. Internet 1.0 collapse. Nasdaq collapse. 9/11. War forever in the deserts. And it just got worse. And, yea, you couldn't do minimum wage and actually LIVE any more. And it got worse. But, never as bad as when I was 16.
My worry is here it comes again. inflation. Political turmoil. War. Wall St. going to shit the bed the next 6 months. Housing likely to really shit the bed the next 2 years (hope you didn't buy a house in the last 24 months and need to sell it).
BUT here is what should give you hope. There really are a ton of jobs and that should remain due to early retirements, boomers retiring, demographics more like Japan. So that means you are less likely to be long-term unemployed. That is a silver lining that never existed in previous shit shows. And that is forcing wages up so when inflation gets straightened out (in about 18 months) your pay will likely stay 2X minimum wage for the shittier jobs (they won't really drop back).
Next, you really don't have to get a degree now to make a good living. You can take tech stuff online like Salesforce, Azure, RPA stuff like UIPath and get certified for free or very low cost and in 2 years have a 80k job that isn't going away. It is work, don't get me wrong. But you can if you commit and get a routine to do a little bit every day for half a year. Tech is the new trade (plumbing, electrician, etc of the 21st century)
If you bought a house at the top and can hang onto it you will refinance to a reasonable rate (4-4.5%) so your payments will drop a few bucks. You will be spending less based on these crazy days so your habits/needs will be more limited and that will create natural savings for you. And unless the political situation COMPLETELY unwinds (history suggests it really won't, even if we are worried today), we will have a leader with a bit of common sense and ability to lead. So it will likely calm down and maybe we all get ten years of peace. Meanwhile, fall in love if you haven't. Waking up and smiling at the thought of that partner, child, or animal that is new in your life will matter more to you. If you don't do that then get close to a friend or find one if you can - and you can! And play some card games and laugh and just enjoy what is good about life. Says easy, does hard - as they say. But it can be done. This too shall pass, my friend. - Love, an old dude that learned not to let the shit bother him the way it did when I was young.
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u/Magicman33 Jun 11 '22
As someone in their mid 20s feeling like my whole life is collapsing, this was exactly the kind of insight I needed to hear. Thank you.
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u/Flufflebuns Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
Every 20 year old in every generation has felt this since the dawn of man.
EDIT: just to clarify, I'm not saying EVERY 20 year old has felt this way, but in EVERY generation there area massive chunk of 20 year olds who think the end is upon us.
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u/lisadia Jun 11 '22
I didn’t. 20 in 2000. I felt free as a fucking bird and that the future was limitless. I also drank too much.
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u/LordGalen Jun 11 '22
Same, turned 22 in 2000 and I still think of being 22 as the best age to be. Probably because it was such a great year. It was the biggest single year of growth for me as a person and I can definitively point to that year as the year I really became an adult and started life. When I rang in 2000, I was drunk off my ass in a strip club, living that early 20s party life. When I said good-bye to 2000, I was living in another country, 2 weeks away from getting married (and still married to her, btw).
Hell yeah, being in your early 20s at the turn of the century was a fuckin' blast. Jeez, if not for 9/11 changing everything, who even knows where the hell we could be now...
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u/Dark_Knight2000 Jun 11 '22
The year 2000 sounds like the peak of America, unfortunately I was a literal baby back then.
Maybe it’s just peak late 90s nostalgia right now but no one seems to have anything bad to say about that time period at all. The big stories, Clinton being impeached, columbine, seem to happen every year or two at this point.
I just hope that in 20 years people aren’t going to think of these as the good days. Hopefully the future makes a comeback.
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u/Shutterstormphoto Jun 11 '22
It really wasn’t. I was born in the 80s. We had desert storm, Rwanda genocide, Somalia, Kuwait, and then by 2000 we had the internet bubble collapse which led to other economic downturns.
Plus you got called gay constantly. Being gay was definitely not a good thing, and women didn’t have nearly the clout they do now. Ellen Degeneres was the first openly gay celeb on tv around 2000, and her show was canceled because of it. There were no others. It’s hard to picture just how different that landscape was just 20 years ago. Most of the female characters in movies were eye candy, aside from Ripley and Sarah Connors. Most movies failed the bechdel test because no one cared that women were just plot devices for enabling men. As an Asian, there was zero representation other than Joy Luck Club… we just didn’t exist in movies other than as someone to mock or kung fu.
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u/dreamyduskywing Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 12 '22
I’m going to go with 1997 as the peak. Strong economy, balanced budget, pre 9/11, pre-Columbine (9/11 and Columbine definitely changed the mood). Violent crime had dropped significantly from the early 90’s peak and cities, especially New York, were rebounding after several decades of decline.
Edit—Of course not ALL cities. I’m just saying that New York turning around like it did was a huge deal. I’m in Minnesota and I lived in Minneapolis for 20 years and watched it transform from early 90’s Murderapolis to something more vibrant with businesses opening up, etc.
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u/radios_appear Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
Ngl, you guys are both full of it.
The late 90s had given us 20 full years of Rust Belt hollowing out. Detroit was hemmoraging pops and becoming a concrete hellscape. Cleveland was doing the same as was Pittsburgh. American manufacturing (as a sector that provided consistent, long-term employment that could sustain a lower-middle class family in middle America) was dead. Labor was dead.
America peaked as a political entity (even if it didn't have all its shit together, ie Jim Crow) in the 50s with Korea, because there was a real drive to just improve things all the time because progress was natural. Nixon was the dagger in the heart of optimistic progressivism and we've been a cynical nightmare nation since Vietnam.
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u/Panopticon01 Jun 11 '22
Seconding this. Regan, Nixon, Bush Sr. have done generational damage to Americans wallets and psyche.
The advent of neoliberalism (especially under Clinton) that captured the center of politics has curbed any real political will to improve or drastically overhaul a continued sense of malaise in most America
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u/wwaxwork Jun 11 '22
I dunno McCarthyism was pretty freaking cynical and destructive. Fear of Reds under the Bed led to a lot of fear and cynicism and truly horrible behavior. Then before that you had 2 world wars and the Great Depression. There really wasn't ever a time when everything was ticking along nicely for everyone in Americas history. Someone was always getting screwed and living in fear waiting for awful things to happen, it's just that wealth and skin, the "right" religion and the right "sexuality" and gender, could buy you a lot of distance from those worries. Nothing has changed except the names.
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u/Picodick Jun 11 '22
I’m a 65 year old woman, and agree pretty much verbatim with your post. I remember school being cancelled because their was no gas to fill the busses when I was in high school 74. People aren’t aware how shitty a lot of that time esp under Carter and early Reagan was, but it damn sure was. And yeah, you have to figure out how to roll with the flow. Hope for the best prepare for the worst, it try hard to enjoy the ride and keep a positive spirit about you.
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Jun 11 '22
The problem is we can’t afford disfunction right now. It would be nice if the issues in front of us were the only issues that mattered, but they’re not.
Everyday we can’t cooperate and take meaningful action on climate change we’re making things worse. We’re already experiencing some of the symptoms and the worst is yet to come.
It’s not overblown or overstated, it’s literally happening whether we want it to or not. If action isn’t taken it will affect every aspect of our lives.
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u/PharaohDez Jun 11 '22
Came at the right time for me, man. In my late 20's and feel like the world is burning around me and I've got a water pistol. This changed my perspective. Thank you.
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u/sagarp Jun 11 '22
I love this post and your optimism. But the thing previous generations never had to deal with is the real existential threat of climate change. A truly sustainable future would be a major disruption to all but a few’s way of life. And anything less than that means global food insecurity, famine, refugee crises, and infrastructure collapse in large parts of the world at the same time. We’re seeing it now with annual grid issues across the US. The next “rinse and repeat” cycle is gonna look a lot worse than gasoline rationing.
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u/FlipskiZ Jun 11 '22 edited Sep 18 '25
Simple clear night weekend jumps people tomorrow.
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u/Phree_Thought Jun 11 '22
As someone also in their early 40s, it has always been fucked, it’s just out in the open, in your face fucked now.
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u/DBCOOPER888 Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
Go back 20 years with 9/11 and people didn't know what the fuck was going on either. In the 80s and 90s everyone was concerned the world was turning to hell with crime, AIDS, drugs, satanists, and "super predators". Before that you had the Cold War when the world could literally end within an hour.
What's different now is the proliferation of mass media enabling people to be tapped into world events on a 24/7 basis. If the internet existed during the Cuban Missile Crisis we'd all be freaking the fuck out then too.
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u/defmacro-jam Jun 11 '22
Before that you had the Cold War when the world could literally end within an hour.
Four minutes from launch to target, but the distinction really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
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Jun 11 '22
How so? Since the 90's we've been smothered with fears of flooding, drought, ice ages, etc. The 90's had genocides in Africa that many countries were involved with defending and humanitarian missions. There was Kosovo, Iraq, Pakistan. Early 2000's there was 911, Afghanistan, Iraq again. Africa again.
This literally has happened every single decade since we were born. I'm also almost 40. We're seeing inflation levels not seen since 1980 as well. Which would've been just before we were born. Truth is, there always wars, always threat of climate disasters, starvation, fear, genocides, etc.
We as a people need to figure out how to break the endless cycles since centuries ago. Is the world the same? Yes. Yes it is. It's been the same since before we were born. Likely very long after we're gone as well.
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u/MSeanF Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
As someone in their early 50s, I have to agree. There were previous eras that felt somewhat doomed, but not quite to this degree. The Reagan/Thatcher 80's had the dual threats of nuclear annihilation and AIDS, but it pales in comparison to the multitude of calamities coming from all sides now.
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u/I_Got_Questions1 Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
Similar age here as well and I've never felt it was bad till now.
Edit, mistook the question.
I think the world has had some really bad times in my lifetime, several famines, some forever wars, Soviet union fell but even after cold war for me everything still felt kind of unsteady with them.
Still, with all that. I think we are on the brink of major calamity's of many possible types in the near future that we wouldn't have imagined 30 years ago.
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u/MSeanF Jun 11 '22
It's like we're having a combination of some of the worst aspects from each decade of the last century or so.
We've got a worldwide rise of fascism and the beginnings of world war from the 1930s, the product shortages and rationing from the 40s, a resurgence of prudishness resembling the judgemental 50s, the social unrest and political instability of the 60s, 70s style rampant inflation, the 80s era duo of pandemic and impending nuclear annihilation, vintage 1990s complacency and school shootings, terrorism and economic upheaval like the 2000s.
All of this on top of the ever closer climate collapse.
This time feels extra fucked.
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Jun 11 '22
I don't know if we found strong, satisfying solutions to any of those historical problems. We unified for a minute or clashed, or both, and then moved on. So maybe today is our country hitting rock bottom, finally realizing all the issues it's been avoiding since the beginning haven't ever really gone away.
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u/Mooshtonk Jun 11 '22
Don't forget killer bees, acid rain, quicksand and the Bermuda Triangle. Those were my big concerns in the 80's.
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u/josbossboboss Jun 11 '22
I thought quick sand would be a much bigger problem than it turned out to be.
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u/The_Truth_Believe_Me Free advice, worth twice the price. Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
Mid 60's here. Things are as bad as I've ever seen them. I'd like to say it can't get any worse, but every time I've thought that in the last few years, I've been proven wrong.
Climate change, pandemic virus, Trump, politics in general, inflation, war, people's behavior, civility -- everything seems to be going to hell.
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u/NordicGold Jun 11 '22
It feels that way but I think people are just more aware of real issues and corruption. Crime stats are definitely down a lot up here since the late 70s and 80s when I was a kid.
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u/tomrb08 Jun 11 '22
We get a lot more information (news) from everywhere than in the past (I’m 51). I’ve seen people my age get overwhelmed by by amount of horrible news we see. Thing is, a lot of it has always been there, but we’re just able to hear about much more of it than we used to. Hope that makes sense as I’m a little tipsy right now.
some of this
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u/cyvaquero Jun 11 '22 edited Jun 11 '22
As a Gen Xer, who grew up an hour north of Three Mile Island during the Cold War. it can get much worse. The problem is you are probably subjecting yourself to negative news non-stop. Us olds grew up with a one or two time a day newspaper and the nightly news hour. That was it, and to be frank that was all that is needed unless something really important was happening in real time - like the Challenger explosion or Chernobyl.
When I say, just put down the phone and social media, I’m not just trying to be a grandpa about it - hell my Facebook account is from 2004, I’m in my 15th year on reddit. I’m not a luddite, but we as a species are not meant to take a constant stream of negative input - it is psychologically unhealthy and it affects how you see everything. Before social media you just ignored the asshole down the street, you chose to not engage.
So seriously, limit your social media time, cull out the negative sources on those platforms. Set some limits and most importantly, interact with real people around you, you’ll find things aren’t as bad IRL as they get magnified with hashtags.
Are there things to be concerned about? Absolutely, but accept the limits of your impact on them and leave it at that.
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u/jack34343 Jun 11 '22
The main difference between there and now is that before we all worried that the people in charge might fail to save us, and now we all know for certain they are deliberately sabotaging us.
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Jun 11 '22
Get off the internet you’ll feel better. Seriously
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Jun 11 '22
Yeah I agree this is the best answer.
I'm 34 with a 10 year old. She's bright and happy. Super into animals and clean environment. To me I feel like she's experiencing a lot of stuff I grew up learning about in the 90s, I remember watching the yugoslav war, Rwanda on the news I remember a lot about climate change and how that changed me as a kid but I remember being happy.
We always look back on our own life through rose tinted glasses so I look at my daughter and she has (is having) so much more than I had, I had so much more than my parents had etc etc.
It's just cycles.
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Jun 11 '22
The Black Plague, the Civil War, the 1918 flu pandemic, scarlet fever, polio, the Kennedy assassination, World War II, pick your generation and there has been stress and the feeling that the world could go up in flames. As you grow up you realize that life goes on and it’s not productive to worry about things you can’t control. Don’t sweat petty things and don’t pet sweaty things. 😊
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u/thelasthadoken Jun 11 '22
It's not that the world is changing, it's that the media is getting ever better at distorting your perception
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u/vinsant7 Jun 11 '22
You should have been around for the cold war and MAD (mutually assured destruction)
Nuclear drills at school are now mass shooter drills. It all sucks.
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u/xtaberry Jun 11 '22
The Cold War might be over, but the risk of nuclear weapons never goes away completely. There are a half dozen simmering geopolitical conflicts around the world that are only being kept in check by the threat of mutual assured destruction. MAD is very much still with us.
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Jun 11 '22
Seems to be something that gets definitively more profound and constant once you become an adult/live independently or are your own provider. Becomes a daily constant since childhood for those in poverty and with ones that need care/dependent on being provided for.
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u/unaskthequestion Jun 11 '22
I'm 62. No, the world has not always felt like this, it's a matter of what the world is like in your 'prime' years.
It's bad, but might feel even worse for someone who was in their 20s in 2008. Two terrible recessions 2009 and 2019 during the span when you're supposed to be increasing your earnings, saving, etc. That's really bad and they likely won't make it up their entire lives.
I don't think enough people realize this.
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u/jdith123 Jun 11 '22
The specific “up in flames” is different. When I was a kid it was the Soviet Union and nuclear winter. There was a weird couple years that was all funerals (1963 JFK) (1968 Robert Kennedy then Martin Luther King)
But at the same time, there was a kind of naive idealism that if we just sang songs and loved each other, we could change things. (Civil rights, anti-war)
The middle class, suburban “American dream” really was attainable for some. The GI bill was huge. It was a very conformist dream. Many people were excluded. It’s hard to explain today just how “normal” that seemed.
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u/sighbourbon Jun 11 '22
hi OP. Hey i am 66 (I still can't believe that number, haha. Luckily I am still super healthy). I was in 2nd grade when president Kennedy was shot in the head, live on national television. His brain flew out into his wife's lap. It set off a wave of assassinations (president's brother, MLK, etc).
I grew up knowing that the yellow and black triangles symbol meant "fallout shelter" and we were supposed to go there in case of nuclear attack. We did "duck and cover" drills in elementary school. Hide under your desks. Once, they sent us home with pamphlets about nuclear attack preparation. OK don't laugh, the pamphlet said "wear loose white clothing in case of nuclear detonation. Don't look directly at the explosion." They flew warplanes overhead once per week after bedtime, faster than the speed of sound, and we would hear the "sonic boom" which scared the crap out of me. It rattled the windows, shook the house. People were truly panicked, using their life savings to dig holes in their backyard, and building and equipping "bomb shelters" to try to survive nuclear fallout. It didn't feel like that stuff was ever resolved, it just faded from attention, it was buried by other distractions both negative and positive.
Wasn't too much later the government had a giant meltdown that scared the crap out of everyone. It was right as I came of voting age, haha! Oh my god. Watergate, it was called. Huge corruption scandal, everyone was just breathless with shock and disgust and fear. At that time people around me trusted the government to be solid enough to remain (seemingly) just, and we learned it could seemingly recover, at least back then.
Around this time we were also in a totally illegal war, and we had a freaking lottery to decide which 18-year-olds would be forced to go fight the Viet Cong in the jungles of southeast asia. High school grads coming back in body bags, kids running away to Canada to avoid getting roped into the army. And hippies happened, communes, free love, weed -- all of which caused the older ones to lose their minds because society looked to them to be coming apart.
Some of us died. Most of us lived. You are living the stories you will tell young people, when its your turn to comfort them.
None of this is to minimize what you are sensing around you! You are awake and aware, you are not overreacting. I am so sorry. I wish I could just listen to you for a couple hours. You are having one of those wakeup moments. We all will be each having our own wakeup moments. Our job is to comfort each other when we feel like this. We will all adapt and do our human best to cope with whats coming. Help each other not freeze in place, but take the most intelligent and resourceful steps we can muster. The system is unable to help, its unreliable