To think the world's becoming a horrible place

[Curiouschlo]

All you hear and see is gloom and doom.

Every week there's videos circling Facebook off teenagers battering each other. Today a local one was circling. I couldn't watch it. But I read the local comments. 3 lads beat up an autistic lad after school. Kicking him in the head etc. A girl filmed it. It's becoming a regular thing where I live to be robbed and beaten up in the street. Older Kids spit on the floor and swear and smoke Infront of my small children when we walk home after school. They shout swear words to their mates ahead. They do wheelies Infront of my children and others without any considerations of their actions.

A care home is circling at the moment for abusing a vunerable person in there so called care.

All you hear about is war and coronavirus at the moment. More attacks have happened in London this week.

I'm normally ok but this week I just keep hugging my kids and watching them play, worrying for their futures. I mean what is the future going to be for them? The world's a horrible place. Obviously there's alot of wonderful things in this world. But it breaks my heart to think they have got to be teenagers. My eldest is 5. Will she be happy and safe in 7 years time at secondary? Or will her life be made a misery. At least while they are little I can keep them safe. I'm absolutely terrified of the future and what could happen.

I'm not depressed by the way. I am just abit concerned

@FurrySlipperBoots

Yes, I was being sarcastic. Some people tend to view things through rose-tinted, and it really is bollocks.

Maybe it is in that we perceive it feels like it’s getting worse as we get older? Meaning the world is different to when I was growing up in the 90’s and from my memory I would say it was better when I was a child - but that’s because I just didn’t know as much about what terrible things can and do (and did then) happen.

But in reality I know that the world is much better (in terms of humanity anyway) than it was just a century ago.

It’s the worst I have seen in my lifetime, but my lifetime is a drop in the ocean when compared to history

I was a teenager in the '70s, OP. There was a lot of violence, gangs of skin heads, football violence, 'P/Q* bashing' just for fun, etc. Personally, I think things have got a lot better, my sons never got into any trouble at all, and we don't live in a posh or rich area.

@viccat same here. I've recently moved to a new town it's seems fine to me, and the neighbours say they like it here. I've had to come off one of the Facebook groups as it's gives the impression it's a crime ridden hell hole !!

I find by sad Experience how the Towns and Streets are filled with lewd wicked Children, and many Children as they have played about the Streets have been heard to curse and swear and call one another Nick-names, and it would grieve ones Heart to hear what bawdy and filthy Communications proceeds from the Mouths of such..
Robert Russell 1695

a fearful multitude of untutored savages... [boys] with dogs at their heels and other evidence of dissolute habits...[girls who] drive coal-carts, ride astride upon horses, drink, swear, fight, smoke, whistle, and care for nobody...the morals of children are tenfold worse than formerly.
7th Earl of Shaftesbury 1843

see the simpering little beau of ten gallanting home the little coquette of eight, each so full of self-conceit and admiration of their own dear self, as to have but little to spare for any one else... and confess that the sight is both ridiculous and distressing... the sweet simplicity and artlessness of childhood, which renders a true child so interesting, are gone (like the bloom of the peach rudely nipped off) never to return.

S.B.S 1853

Never has youth been exposed to such dangers of both perversion and arrest as in our own land and day. Increasing urban life with its temptations, prematurities, sedentary occupations, and passive stimuli just when an active life is most needed, early emancipation and a lessening sense for both duty and discipline, the haste to know and do all befitting man's estate before its time, the mad rush for sudden wealth and the reckless fashions set by its gilded youth--all these lack some of the regulatives they still have in older lands with more conservative conditions.
Granville Stanley Hall 1904

‘Twas ever thus.

The world is probably the safest it has ever been in terms of clear and present danger to our children. Climate change may be their biggest problem that will affect their future. War, famine, pestilence will not be.

The lack of respect shown to teachers, police etc is shocking.
Many only showed respect to teachers and police in the past because those authority figures could beat the snot out of them if they showed disrespect. It doesn't mean they were inherently better people.

Teachers and the police aren't always right either. There are some very corrupt people in those jobs. Just look at what happened with Hillsborough.

l agree with PP - it's always been there, we just have more access to it now.
Also agree with PP about focusing on the good stuff.
lt's like if someone asks you to look round and notice all the red (bad) things. Then they ask you how many green (good) things you noticed. You only see what you focus on. The other stuff is there, you just don't notice it.
There are awful things going on. There always have been. Not much over 100 years ago children as young as 4 years old were working down the mines and being pushed up chimneys.
And similarly, there has always been good in the world. We, as a single person, can't do much about the bad. But we can do our bit, however small, for good, to improve someone else's lot.

I'd also add that I've had dogs' abuse off teenagers AND adults. There are plenty of grown adults who really don't like anyone who looks or acts a bit different. Look at all the abuse autistic people get, for instance. There was a video on Twitter of some pink-haired kid dancing in the street and the comments were full of people sneering at them and going on about how National Service would set them straight and how they needed a good beating. Why should we all have to look the same?

This is so depressing to read as the mother of a child with asd. I think we should spend less time just worrying about our own kids and “ holding them tight” or whatever OP said she was doing but we should aLso try to show love and compassion for other people’s children, campaign for better social care, things for young people to do, mental health support for youngsters etc. Vote accordingly. Knife crime, violence , attacks on the vulnerable all increase in a society like this where it’s all about money and survival of the fittest and the state is choked to breaking point.

while there is evil selfishness & stupidity & short sightedness (& we know more about it because of the media so perhaps it seems more because of that) I would also say there are good people both young & old who do good & brave things - not for reward but just because they feel its the right thing to do - & they don't get noticed as much as the loud selfish people. In a classroom you have 2 loud & badly behaved kids their noise & behaviour can make the teacher feel that the whole class is difficult but they aren't its just 2 kids. the rest are frightened shy or just holding back & some of those children are clever & good & may excel because of that lesson but the teacher might not realize that because she feels a failure because of those 2 children.

The lack of respect shown to teachers, police etc is shocking.

The lack of respect I saw in the 80s and 90s of my youth was shocking too, along with the mindless violence. I remember youths rioting a mile from my house along with various stabbings in local nightclubs in the 90s.

The reality is that the general trend over time is that the world is becoming a much less violent, less unhealthy, less, prejudiced, less unjust, less dangerous and less barbaric place. It is the best time ever to be alive!

The thing we really need to address is climate change if we want to keep that trend on track.

The murder rate/serious violence rate in the middle ages was sky high.

Manuel Eisner Long-Term Historical Trends in Violent Crime

Abstract

Research on the history of crime from the thirteenth century until the end of the twentieth has burgeoned and has greatly increased understanding of historical trends in crime and crime control. Serious interpersonal violence decreased remarkably in Europe between the mid-sixteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Different long-term trajectories in the decline of homicide can be distinguished between various European regions. Age and sex patterns in serious violent offending, however, have changed very little over several centuries. The long-term decline in homicide rates seems to go along with a disproportionate decline in elite homicide and a drop in male-to-male conflicts in public space. A range of theoretical explanations for the longterm decline have been offered, including the effects of the civilizing process, strengthening state powers, the Protestant Reformation, and modern individualism, but most theorizing has been post hoc.

I feel the same. But I think the world has always been ghastly, just for different reasons.

You need to find the joy in the little things and the present moment of you will go mad. You can only control the things in front of you so don’t worry about the ones you can’t as it’s pointless.

If you were able to remove social media would things be better? People have always been nasty to each other, SM allows them to spread it further.
As far as the world being a horrible place, it's always been so, I recall going to school in '63 not knowing if we would be going home, Cuban missile crisis, we were genuinely scared We watched a programme last week about the '70s and all the bomb scares, I recall checking under our cars when we lived with the Military in Germany and crossing fingers when the ignition was turned.
The problem now is that we know so much. news is instant and widely diseminated and I'm not convinced that that is a good thing.
I remain convinced that the explosion of MH problems relate directly to social media.

“ Teenagers are the people battering and mugging people. That's why. ”

I don’t know what the figures are but it feels as if they were much worse when I was in my 20s. Honestly, I think the internet has occupied a lot of them. It’s part of the explanation for teen pregnancy going down too.

I don’t think the world is much different but I think overcrowding and overpopulation makes it worse, understandably.

Oh I’ve just seen the OP flounced.

And from some posts, might be on glue.

But war is happening. In Syria etc. There are bad things happening all over the world.
www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8832311/war-casualties-600-years
Have a look at this graph. Deaths in wars (per capita) are lower than at any point in the last 600 years.

We're well on the way for men to be legally allowed to say they're women and we're bigots if we don't accept this. So yes life for girls and women in the future will be shit as we won't have any protected spaces. Your daughter will have to shower alongside a creepy teenage boy who declares himself a woman. Your old mum will have her intimate care done by a bloke and be helpless to question this. Your daughter will also have fuck all chance being the best in her sport as they've let men in to compete alongside her as they're women now. So yes the world is due to become a much more horrible place for females.

We are in a golden age (and location) where you expect to survive childbirth, you expect your child to survive infancy, you can get free medical attention and medicine for your child and your child is routinely vaccinated against many common serious illnesses. You expect to see your child grow up.
No matter what your beef with modern society is, compare it with burying your child or sending your 4 year old to work.

I'm 41 and over the last 18 months I have started to suffer from anxiety, I am usually a very strong person, never suffered from any form of anxiety previously in my life and I've realised it is because of the horrible videos I have stumbled across on line and all the things I've read, we are so much more exposed to things now.

What sort of things are you watching that's upsetting you? Are you bottling it all up?

Apologies @Oakenbeach - I missed your irony!

It can be hard to tell sometimes, especially amongst the usual decrying of "yoovs" that is happening. By people who don't seem to realise that the world hasn't changed, but they have.

I am 43 this year, I remember my youth with rose tinted glasses. But because I am intelligent educated person, I am also able to learn about the wider world that was happening outside my happy bubble and realise that I was just lucky during that time.

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again." Robert Jordan, The Wheel of Time.

Round and around we go.

@SummerPavillion I do agree with this. Showing any kind of compassion or kindness is sneered at as 'virtue signalling' or 'wokeness' or being a 'snowflake' or whatever. Acting like a total shithead is far more acceptable.