Is the world going to shit or am I just getting older?

[patchworkthedog]

Hi, I wanted some perspective from people who have more life experience than me.

As I have gotten older, it seems like more and more calamitous events are happening on a national and international level. I am wondering if all this stuff has always been happening, and the news has always been so dire and negative, but I just didn't notice when I was a child?

It would be comforting to know that the world isn't going to hell in a handcart, it's just that I am more aware of things now.

Well, I remember the days of the Cold War, mutually assured destruction, the 3 day week and galloping interest rates and massively long dole queues.

So it's pretty shitty at the moment, but its been as bad in the past, and just as apocalyptic.

A bit of both, I think.
We’re definitely aware of more probably because we are adults but also because the media and social media enable us to get constant stream of news from everywhere and all angles.
People are riled more, less tolerant and can organise themselves better thanks to social media.

I think 24 hour news, social media, etc means we're much more aware of things than we used to be. Awful things have always happened, we just didn't always know about them. Or we may have known about them, but we wouldn't have seen such graphic footage as we do now.

I think this plays a big part in why so many more people are suffering with anxiety these days. When I start to feel overwhelmed, I know it's time to step away from the news for a bit.

Bah, it's been ever thus. Look at some of Pepys rantings and how the Georgians railed against coffee shops and dandies

When I was younger there were IRS terrorists, there were droughts, famines and wars around the world. The collapse of Yuogoslavia and awful atrocities there. There was Beiruit and on and on. Humans are pretty shit. It never ends.

*IRA

With social media and news24 we know everything now whether we want to or not.

A combo of both I think, and in some ways a bit chicken and egg. Things have always been rubbish for someone, somewhere. However, social media has shown people the worst of what is happening, but it has also isolated which horrible events (real or imagined or blown out of proportion) people see or don’t see according to what they are already inclined to believe. That aspect of modern life is new and, in my opinion, incredibly dangerous because it adds gasoline to humanity’s worst inclinations. The social media echo chamber makes people feel completely justified (and indeed righteous) in their beliefs, with no counter-arguments being presented in their spheres to temper that, so we are seeing a mass radicalization of sorts, on both sides. It has fueled a deeply dysfunctional and acrimonious political climate which is spilling over into things like the storming of the US capitol, which is certainly not a normal event.

How old are you OP?

I think we become more aware of things as we get older. As others have said 24hour news and social media mean it is hard to escape the fort details. But I think there have always been things going on.

What @Linguaphile said.

I am in my twenties. The earliest news I can remember is people criticising Tony Blair over the Iraq war, but I had no idea why or what the war was about, lol.

I think that is a very salient point about the 24hr news cycle. We are exposed to death and destruction all over the world every hour of the day. Previous generations might not have even known anything was happening, whereas I get a spike of anxiety every time I look at my phone and see another tsunami, earthquake, etc. has happened. I'm sure it's affecting our psyche is a negative way.

I think it's more that we are constantly bombarded with usually bad news from so many avenues.
I can wake up, check my phone for the time and see 5 news alerts for anything from coronavirus is up 70% in my area to Britain will be minus 12 next week or brexit scaremongering.
When I was a kid I remember being terrified of the nuclear war threat (80s) and obsessively trying to watch anything about it but even then the news was only on a few times a day and we had no social media.
The news has always been shit...famine, war, unemployment etc. Thats why they used to put a "feel good" story at the end about animals or something.
I think as I ve got older I ve got more confident that yes things can be bad but we cant stop living while we wait to die.
However I still remember the terrified kid I was especially when students are stressing out about covid.

I dont think this compares to WW1 or 2 tbh.

I think the "world" looks a lot worse these days due to the internet and 24/7 news.
This overloads most of us with information that we cannot process and situations that we cannot do anything about.

I agree there have obviously been much worse times to be alive, but it feels like things are going downhill nowadays and I wasn't sure if I was just being exposed to the 'real world' for the first time. I remember being in history class when we were told Obama had been voted in, and it was a positive, joyous moment. I can't remember the last time there was a moment like that. Even when the Covid-19 vaccines were announced to have had successful trials, even that had a short lifecycle of positivity before it was back to doom and gloom.

According to the powers that be, things will improve.

www.decadeofhealth.co.uk/

www.weforum.org/great-reset/

The future is bright. 👍🏻

I've been thinking this!

However, I think I was a bit oblivious/not interested in things when I was younger (IRA, Falklands, miners, Thatcher, strikes, etc.).

People do seem to be struggling financially much more now. I'm not sure if that is because they are worse off or that there is more coverage/people are more vocal. I do wonder if people were more stoic/just got on with it. Both my Grandma and my Mum grew up in very poor households.

It's been the worst year for a while.

My dm thinks 1963 was worse, and I remember one student year - 1983 I think - that was appalling. Divided country, miners strike, hatred, IRA bombs, plus the appalling murder of a child in my home town and neighbours suspecting each other. It felt like the world had gone mad.

But it will pass.

I’d also be interested to know if people feel that the human race has generally got a lot more selfish now, or whether it has always been this way that a tranche of society takes it upon themselves to make sure they are ok ahead of others. Can you tell I feel a bit jaded right now

When I was younger there were IRS terrorists, there were droughts, famines and wars around the world. The collapse of Yuogoslavia and awful atrocities there. There was Beiruit and on and on. Humans are pretty shit. It never ends.
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Here we go lol

“I’d also be interested to know if people feel that the human race has generally got a lot more selfish now, or whether it has always been this way that a tranche of society takes it upon themselves to make sure they are ok ahead of others.”

We have always been this bad, and certain eras were have been far worse. Things like slavery have been around for thousands of years and for most of that time were considered perfectly acceptable. Most kingdoms over the course of history were taken at the tip of a sword by people who had enough but wanted more. Today, most people probably own at least one item that passed through the hands of a young child in some part of the production process. It is human nature for people to look out for themselves first, which is why we need laws to protect the weak and vulnerable.

Climate change is the biggie and anyone saying "oh things have been worse" needs to recognise that.

There's also the fact that whatever the current atrocity is will be added in your head to the list of previous atrocities. So I remember Piper Alpha and thinking this was the worst disaster that had ever happened. To my parents though, it was another disaster, they had seen others (less bad? More bad? Both?). And then I remember Lockerbie too. Then there's the gulf war. And Dunblane. And and and

There is more reporting available to us at all times. And maybe we are in another round of extremism but there have always been bad things happening. Just when you are young you don't have the same back catalogue to compare to or add to. And there's also the fact some stuff wouldn't have been in the child/teen radar.

But there has always been good stuff too. People trying to make the world a better place. There have always been people trying to make sure good things happen.

Just got back from Sainsbury's. There's a headline in the daily fail i think about how we should worry about Donald trump starting a nuclear war.
With my jaded middle aged perspective I just thought ok anything to sell papers.
They were ALL full of doom and gloom headlines.
Right by the hand sanitizer bit so unavoidable.

The world is not in general on a trajectory to shit. We're going through a uniquely awful period right now -- probably worse than anything we've dealt with as a country since WW2. But while its a very real and painful event and has been going on for nearly a year, its not part of a "trend". It's just a bad thing.

I'm old enough to remember the Cold War and people lived in a permanent state of paranoia about being blown up by the Russians. Of course that never happened but it felt very real at the time. Also despite the horrors of COVID we still live in a uniquely affluent period. We have standards of living, health, nutrition etc which our great grandparents could only dream about. It's hard to see but in general we are very privileged.

There's a tendency to think that everything is travelling in one direction "things are going to shit" etc as if this was part of some demonic masterplan. In reality life is much more complex than that and there isn't a single narrative direction. We will get through COVID. It may not happen as quickly as some people would have us believe but things will eventually go back to some normality. No doubt there will be another thing to worry about then but it just isn't true that everything is always getting worse.