The insurmountable ever increasing debt burden caused by central banks, reckless governments, and debased fiat currencies, is a big one. The progressive-utopians are always quick to point out that we’re allegedly more prosperous than people in the past. No, due to the mountains of unpayable debt, we’re far poorer.
There is a reason why people say a picture is worth a thousand words. Regarding the reliability of the images I invoke, well, there is a lot of urban landscape visible through the windshield of the car used in the show I refer to. There are dozens of situations in various locations. I think it is naive to believe that every image seen on TV is fake.
I agree that everything seems to be getting more grim and joyless too. Marcus Flavius summarizes my sense well. I’d aslo agree with Ulfreida’s additions. While many aspects of life are demonstrably better than they were, say, 50 years ago, it still **feels **overall that we’re getting more isolated, hunkered down in front of our computers while our leaders turn us against each other, global partnerships fall apart, everything is commoditized and ugly, and the planet breaks another temperature record every day.
I don’t how to quantify this. Maybe it’s just my biased perspective as a mediocre middle aged guy looking back to a time that never existed. To some extent, I’m probably projecting my own existential anxiety on the world I see. But between the rise of nationalist politicians and climate change and a precarious economy, I’m deeply distressed about the future.
In Star Trek the American dream is alive and kicking.
“Shitty reality TV” shows American homes where houses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars are entirely built of wood. Walls are hollow, and only a few inches thick. Seriously, this is unimaginable for many Europeans. When I saw (on the news) that American towns were almost completely wiped out by tornadoes I just couldn’t believe it. Most houses in Europe are made of brick or concrete, with thick exterior and interior walls. Maybe houses in the USA have the same building standards and European TV viewers are presented a distorted image of the American life.
:shrugs:
If you’d rather be miserable, no one can stop you.
Regards,
Shodan
For some reason, group activities and social outings have decreased over the past couple of decades. Many golf courses around my area have closed, and a couple bowling alleys within a 20 miles of me have closed within the last 5 years.
We seem to have become more isolated. Why? Is it because of technology?
I heard one explanation (from someone who keeps track of these things) that group activities started to decline after 9/11. Their reasoning was that 9/11 permanently changed us and took some joy out of our society. Not sure if I agree with that.
My theory: in the U.S., at least, a lot of people live in fear of messing up and getting arrested. Much more so that when I was young.
We are on the cusp of monumental change in many ways—environmentally, societally, politically—many people are recoiling in fear rather than embracing it. It’s kind of predictable.
Among other things—We are seeing the advent of a jobless society. That should be good for all of us. But because of the backlash, we are failing to lay the groundwork for a smooth transition, which will result in tremendous unnecessary suffering.
Societal assumptions are breaking down regarding things like work, gender roles, sexism, racism, religion, capitalism, the value of labor, family structure, etc. All this should be liberating. Instead, fear is causing panic.
There’s also the fact that rural and small town economics are inevitably changing. There will be no economic engine. That will kill a certain way of life. That’s a cause of fear too, and retreat to apocalyptic religion and tribalism.
Is the stuff one can read on this forum more reliable than TV in general?
Newer build residential units in America are made with shoddy workmanship and utter bottom barrel garbage materials. Yet another indication that we aren’t as “prosperous” as we believe ourselves to be.
dup
I had a month long road trip across Western Europe last year and was shocked at just how many small towns in France and Europe looked just like shitty American towns. Small houses with old couches decaying by their front door, shops with absolutely nobody in them despite it being tourist season, I went through an entire German town, had lunch and walked around the monuments for an hour at noon and didn’t see a single other soul besides the guy who served me at the restaurant and people just driving through.
Probably not. And most of the same skills in discernment are necessary on the SDMB as for TV, or social media in general.
Always, TV is trying to sell you something. It might be a view of the world, it might just be the stuff in the commercials, but everything you see is presented to you for a reason. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily false, but it doesn’t mean it’s automatically true either.
I don’t ask other people if I should be happy. That’s a waste of time.
Regards,
Shodan
I think it needs to be sad that places can look worse than they seem.
I just watched a fascinating documentary about the South Bronx during the late 1970s. Talk about a grim and joyless-looking place! There are few places in the US that have the kind of negative reputation that the South Bronx has. But it wasn’t all bad even at its nadir. And because it wasn’t all bad, we now have the force of nature called hip hop.
I think people in general are feeling less hopeful and rosy-eyed about the future. It is really hard to be hopeful and rosy-eyed nowadays. A lot of that can be blamed on the media, but I also think it is the inevitable result of people detaching from religious institutions and becoming more rational in their thinking. I also think a lot of people are going through shit, and it is harder to cope with shit now than it used to be in the past. You break your arm and might be out of pocket thousands of dollars even though you have insurance. Take one too many sick days from work and you might lose your job. Lose your job and your car might be repossessed. You might get evicted. You might become homeless. One little mistake or accident is enough to make the whole house of cards come tumbling down. Maybe we’ve always had such a precarious existence and we just didn’t know it because we weren’t exposed to all the cautionary tales out there. But I don’t think it’s always been this precarious.
The Midwest represents the real economy of the US ie farming and manufacturing. The fact that this party of the country is in such disrepair should concern us all.
Chrissy Hynde, returning from the UK, noticed it already in 1984. Did it get worse, or is it all same old, same old?
In general, people take too many things too seriously. If your spouse died yesterday, that’s serious. If you can’t play Fortnite in HD at your house, that’s not serious. A lot of my acquaintances are stressing out because their investments aren’t doing as well as they expected, or their grocery stopped carrying gluten-free rolls.
As some have said above, everything is relative to your age and perspective. Young children, up to perhaps their late teens who have no perspective of how things where may think that our current era is the best thing ever. Children growing up in the depression era may have been aware of the hard times, but they were still gleefully playing their children’s games without care. For some, things got worse, for others, things got better and for some, things stayed the same.
As we grow older and our knowledge, especially with the internet grows, we make a conscious and subconscious choice of how we choose to perceive the world. If I’m a successful entrepreneur, our times are great because I’m doing well. If I’m a struggling hourly worker without hope of advancement, my view is more pessimistic.
Every era has it’s optimists and pessimists and regardless of which side of the fence you’re on and how your choose to work with or against it, things will either get worse, get better or stay the same.
There’s a lot in this, Compared to even 30 years ago we have so much more in our lives that we expect as a right and so much more that can fall slightly below those expectations, misery by a thousand annoyances.
(I’m actually not miserable, I remember the dark days of the 70’s in the north-east of the UK, life is much, much better now)
It’s not the suffering the OP is talking about, it’s the unhappiness.
I would probably consider myself a techno utopian and its a common idea among the ones I know that the early/mid 21st century will be a very difficult transition.
Mass automation is going to lead to widespread unemployment and retransitioning, which will make radical political ideologies more acceptable. I wouldn’t be surprised if the US gets close to true fascism within the next few decades because of it. It’ll be easy to blame the lack of jobs on immigrants, the Chinese, liberal workers in California automating all the jobs, etc.
Also people are wealthy enough that they’ve lost any sense of community. Jobs disappear, people don’t know their neighbors, people move away from family, etc. People have nobody they can count on.
In the long run, quality of life will improve just as it has more or less kept improving for the last few hundred years. But the phase we’re in now is not good. Our government, economy and society isn’t even remotely prepared for whats about to come.
The true techno utopia won’t arrive until probably the 22nd century with radical advances in AI and neuroscience.