Hello. This is more asking for your opinions than ranting.
I know I’m not the first one or the last one to say what I’mma say. I know I’m subjective since I am in depression, and this is not well documented, it’s only based on my personnal experience, and what I see on the internet.
In our societies (at least western developped ones, sorry for all the other users, I just talk bout what I know), are people getting… worse? Worse, for people ? Well, yes. Worse overall. And standards are lowering. Let me explain. I want to know if you agree with these points:
First obvious point:
softer and weaker. Actually this point may kinda be the source of all the others. I’m not saying that everyone in the past was dealing with huge problems every day without ever complaining. But C’mon. People were tougher. Everyday I see people complain about “it’s hard to wake up”, “the struggles of being an introvert”, “school=hell”, “omg I cant breathe I’m squeezed there are too many people on the train I’M GONNA CHOKE”
Everyone feels allowed to complain more and more about more and more things that, in the past, people just ignored and “sucked it up” until it was over… Or it was considered so minor that they didn’t complain… Is it just me and the people I know, or same for you guys?
Second point:
Irresponsible. People are acting more and more as if doing things they have to do are super hard and when they do what they have to, they act as if it were something to thank them for, something to be proud of. When it’s just normal.
Third Point:
Socially mediocre. I feel like more and more people are getting socially awkward, which means they can’t do basic social things like holding a conversation, be funny and idk just socialize… And when they do, it’s overthought, they have to do mental efforts to do so. I feel like before, poeple didnt even think about it, and just talked to each other without thinking about ‘socializing’ they just did, naturally, without even thinking about it…
Fourth point:
less focused. I feel like the ability to focus, which is to me the most essential thing we can master. People often forget words in sentence, retain less things just by listening, listen less, and many say that just sitting down and working for hours is now super hard…
fifth point:
more selfish. I feel like the lack of empathy is growing and that selfishness is increasing aw.
Sixth point:
people are getting more shallow. I feel like everytime they do something, and really commit to it, they do everything while thinking about what others are gonna think of them, the social benefits of it… And when they start doing things it often has more things to do with how cool they will be doing it than believing in how good the thing will be by itself. They also have less passions, and more ‘time killers’ hobbies…
Seventh point:
People are getting super arrogant and overconfident. Why are so many people that are dumber than me and/or more disrespectful than me, being so arrogant and confident in everything they do? I mean you see lots of people on the internet treating others like inferior beings and despising them, while themselves are believing stupid sh*t and doing nothing of their lives? How do they dare to open their mouth in the first place, AND, o ntop of that to be PROUD of themselves and deem smarter people inferior to them?
Eighth point:
People are less healthy and take less care of their bodies.
Ninth point:
People are more addicted tha before…? Ok maybe not, not sure with this one.
Tenth point:
People are unhappier. I mean just look at me. I was raised in a loving family, with enough money to cover everything I needed and wanted, and yet I’m here. So many people I know, despite being perhaps the luckiest and freest people in human history are sad, for familial reason, because of heartbreaks, because they hate themselves and are pathetic (me)… I mean, shouldnt we be happier than ever? it’s crazy to me to see people in Africa or in Syria, or in the favelas, laughing and smiling all the time and describing themselves as happy, while the amount of depressions in our societies is skyrocketing, and I can see it in the people I know… Are we creating problems in order to stay sad as we get more priviledged?? No matter how hard I say to myself that I’m lucky, I remain sad lol.
Twelveth point:
people are less curious. Might be related to one of the things previously said. I feel like people are nowadays less prone to get interested in things and look for new things than now…
Twelwe and one-th point
People are expecting more things from life, need more things to be happy, as in what makes them happy is a narrow range of specific conditions that keeps shrinking, while in the past people were just happy when they were with family, or even when they had comfortable accomodation.
I KNOW, that I’m no better than anyone else, I’m even worse than average. That’s why I’m here. I’m concerned by all these points more than you think I am. But this is not about me. It’s about wondering if our society is DECAYING (big word) or not. If all the standards lowering in almost every field are causing the rotting of us people. Do you recognize any of these points? Or more that I’ve forgotten or not worded properly? Am I just setting the bar too high when I think about what not being pathetic is, or Am I just inventing a phenomenon because I hate myself and I’m jealous of everyone else? Have people always been like this?
And if you agree with me, do you think there’s a way back? Canwe un-f*ck up entire societies by un-f*cking everyone?
OF COURSE, I know that everyone is not like that. Many people are hardworking, responsible, do not spend their days showing their ass online or dancing, and are caring boyfriends, daughters… Many people are still respectful and polite. There are still geniuses among us, still extroverts and still people who are not affected by any of the elements of the list above.
I’m just saying that more and more people are getting affected by it.
THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR.
I love you. I wish you to become the best person you can be, and have and enriching and fullfilling life, full of love and happiness.
11 comments
there’s more to humanity than how people appear right now, what we are seeing now is the result of grinding two generations of the helping profession down to burnout. The awfulness now was always there, there were just enough people working against it to make mankind appear noble and kind.
Choice is what it is all about. People can choose to be better, or they can choose to continue down the current path, alienating anyone willing to help them.
We can control so much, our temperature, what we eat, who we talk to, what we do for a living…. but we fundamentally cannot control others. We can influence them, and influence can go a long way. It can’t force choices, that’s free will, and even if there is a God he can’t jimmy it.
I’ve washed my hands of the entire species, having nearly arranged my escape to exile. My labor is an expensive commodity, one that people seem to either be incapable of affording or incapable of caring enough to pay market rates.
I tried to convince the world it needed me, the resounding answer has been no. I tried to convince the people around me that kindness was worthwhile, and I have failed. I did all I could, and this failure is not one I can own. It belongs to the people content with failure, at peace with cruelty, and complacent at the world’s problems.
Those are the people that would have to be convinced, one way or another, for things to change. They are stubborn, and of limited intellectual resources. Reason flat doesn’t work on them. You can scare them though, and that is the only line of attack left.
thank you, I can see in this anwser experience that I don’t have, i’ll reply in a better way later
I mean, I’m virtual, virtual, ah! In the words of the great kyOresu.
All of these problems are symptoms of domestication as its roots snake their way deeper and deeper into the collective unconscious. If you went back 50,000 years and talked to a neanderthal about conditions in modern society, they would wonder how any of us can survive when most people can’t even hunt, much less find edible flora, or practice rudimentary agriculture. We’re more and more compartmentalized, more and more living within the thinning facade which passes for culture. Economies consolidate into bigger firms, and less of them. Market dominance turns all our goods and services into overly complex, poorly crafted garbage, but there sure is a lot of it. I often wonder how much further this process can go before the veneer starts to crack and we’re all left like confused zombies looking for processed foods in a world where industry has all broken down.
Fighting over twinkies while yepping like muppets, just flopping down the broken streets until the path leads us to the next McDonalds.
I was expecting that kind of answer. I think I’d take it lol, I guess it’s the most predicitble yet sound one, we have become what we’ve become due to the the dependence to our overindustrialized societies… ehe sad
Guess I have to learn how to hunt and grow crops and produce my own juice now
I read your post this morning and thought about it all day. I think a lot of what you say is true. People are unhappier. Which to me has always seemed the natural result of our steadily growing industrial dystopia. But life has always involved suffering of some kind. I thank my lucky stars my century isn’t mediaeval torture or self immolation or something. I don’t think any generation has been intrinsically happy. A bit happier than others? Sure.
Lowered expectations from ourselves, I thought about this one in particular. I don’t think that’s so bad. We’re living things. And expectations of us just gets more and more ridiculous. We’re not meant to be typing away sitting still ten hours a day. We’re part of a culture that has no respect for work life balance. On call 24/7 is the new and utterly exhausting norm. The retiring generation didn’t deal with all this crap. So I say it’s totally acceptable to be clear about your boundaries. I would much prefer the hard work my parents put in to build their working class lives than the hard work expected of me for subsistence.
As for poor social skills, man have I fallen prey to this one. Yeah, we suck at talking in 2022. But I think we’ll all improve on this count as COVID fades.
Anyway I think you’re right, the world sucks, but people don’t suck any more than usual.
Thanks for your answer mate, I have things to say that I’ll say later.
ok so –
the first point, that people are getting softer and weaker, i think is related to an increase in living standards and life expectancy all round. if you think about it, in the middle ages there was a high chance people would die anyway so your primary goal was to survive, and there weren’t a lot of choices for jobs, there wasn’t the chance that you would find someone you love or have a good job or a good house or a pet. obviously that was hard for people to deal with but since you were probably going to die soon and everyone you love was in the same situation, you didn’t know that life could be any better, you just got on with it. now we have this capitalist idea that everyone should be achieving the best they can all the time and many people are lucky enough not to experience war or extreme poverty and have a high life expectancy and living standards, which makes everyday struggles seem a lot worse comparatively. think about it – being a peasant and dying of the plague in the middle ages, compared to being a poor victorian orphan living on the streets – whole different set of problems. but now, you’re likely to have medical help and not die of the plague, and you have adverts and everyone telling you you have the chance to live a happy life, so it’s a whole new set of expectations. the thing about people being allowed to complain – with the internet and the mental health acceptance movement, and the emergence of therapy etc, there comes the idea that no matter what problems you have, they should be taken seriously and you should be allowed to talk about them, which i think is a good thing. in the past people would just bottle up their emotions and got on with their day and that’s just as damaging.
second point – i think it’s also related to the first point. because of the absence of extreme life events for many people, everyday things seem a lot harder. this is why in warzones or on emergency teams people aren’t complaining so much and don’t want a lot of praise, because they know they have to do it. and also, it depends on the person. if you have BPD or bipolar or extreme childhood trauma or a disability, even going to work or brushing your teeth feels a lot harder for you, compared to people without those problems. it’s a matter of perspective. and also with the internet and social media there’s the idea of getting a social reward for sharing your struggles and for keeping on living, people telling you you’ve done well.
third point – i think that really does depend on who you are and who you’re talking to. i would say conversation isn’t dead yet and lots of people aren’t socially awkward, in fact are really funny and creative. so it depends on who you’re talking to and what your perspective is.
fourth point – i think a lot of that is related to the world we live in, with constant distractions all the time and all information at the push of a button, and less time off screens staring at things, less time improving your brain. and it might not be that people were able to focus more in the past, but that they had less to distract them. and some people are able to focus a lot more.
fifth point – i agree that lots of people are focused on themselves a lot more and there is a rise in hostility and lack of empathy. but also in the past there might have been even less empathy and we just didn’t know about it. how many charity workers are there now, and activists, and people listening to others’ problems, and medics etc? i do agree that capitalism encourages the idea of the individual and buying things to make you happy and ignoring that goods come from slavery. but also there is perhaps an increase in tolerance for minorities who were traditionally discriminated against, like lgbtq people, disabled people, BIPOC etc. not that there also isn’t an increase in hate, but that because of the internet people are interacting and knowing about others’ struggles whereas in the past they were unable to see different points of view and were more racist.
7th point – i agree and i think internet culture in part helps that. i know some might not agree with it but it does tie into the western world, colonialism, the patriarchy and white supremacy, and the class system, where some people get validation and opportunities because of their privilege not because they work hard. like in the UK, the rich white boys going to eton (top private school) would get the top jobs and become prime minister while other people wouldn’t get the chance. so that allows people to feel more confident in their mediocrity because nobody tells them they’re not very good. and then in alt-right spaces and echo chambers people encourage the hatred of others and the fact that they are supposedly superior for whatever reason, and put others down. like the phrase ‘kys’ being so widely used on people, the idea people physically want others to be so unhappy they die. it’s horrible. because of the internet, if one person does it then everyone can join in and become part of that movement. but then if you go to another corner of the internet you get people going ‘i love you, stay strong, you can do this’ and trying to treat others with kindness. so it’s a mix.
8th point. wellllll in the middle ages poor people didn’t have a lot of choice in what they ate and couldn’t even take baths, but had to work hard every day out in the fields. they’re still unhealthy, but for different reasons. now there’s packaged food for people to eat as much as they want, people work in less physically demanding jobs and don’t have to go to the gym, or eating well and exercising is expensive and inaccessible. so it comes down to societal factors and capitalism again – you have all this choice and nobody telling you not to.
9th point. anything can become addicting if you
Hello! Thank you so much for responding with that much details to my post! I’m glad and proud that it caught your attention to this point! and you have a lot of interesting arguments,
I shall respond better later, thank you
have a good day
What would you do in times when the living envy the dead? For example, the Coptic Christians in Egypt live in constant humiliation, a daily martyrdom. One said of his martyred brother, he envies that he no longer has to go through the daily suffering and humiliation.
What would you do in such a situation? What would give you strength to go on? Maybe then one finds something.
In the moment it may seem bleak, but in the end the people could live free — with trauma from the past, but free at last. I’m Bulgarian, my people too had times when the living envied the dead, but nothing on earth is eternal.
Those who gave up, who remembers them? And yet, who would dare to fail pity them?
Have to admit I’m kinda not following here… Not that I’m not interested by your metaphors or the history of Bulgaria, but what are you tryna convey here? To not give up?