Old people: is the world crazier now than it used to be?

baroompa wrote:

nothing makes sense wrote:

I’m only in my mid-30s, and to me it feels like all sanity and rationality and belief in objective truth have gone out the window in the last few years. Is this true, or has the world always been a senseless clustermuck?

From people believing vaccines are full of microchips to believing in “men” giving birth…it’s all insane nonsense.

It's saner now than ever.

In the US, violent crime is at an all time low, public health would be at an all time high were it not for the pandemic. Wealth is greater than ever before. There is less warfare in the Americas and Europe and Asia (sadly not so in Africa).

There’s definitely less war in Africa as well. No analogue to the carnage of the Algerian war of independence (50s), Biafran war (70s), the Rwandan genocide (90s), Charles Taylor in Sierra Leone and Liberia (90s). The DRC civil war, conflicts in South Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea continue (they are not new and were worse in the past), as well as insurgency in northern Nigeria and unrest in S.A.

Africa is a gigantic , very diverse and very poor continent. I wouldn’t expect all its countries to ever be free of conflict. But it has been worse before.

Don't worry the Chinese have taken over Africa.

alanson wrote:

OMG. Do you know the difference between an execution and an assassination?

No, he doesn’t.

Chinese killed 100 million of their own wrote:

roho the ho wrote:

There’s definitely less war in Africa as well. No analogue to the carnage of the Algerian war of independence (50s), Biafran war (70s), the Rwandan genocide (90s), Charles Taylor in Sierra Leone and Liberia (90s). The DRC civil war, conflicts in South Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea continue (they are not new and were worse in the past), as well as insurgency in northern Nigeria and unrest in S.A.

Africa is a gigantic , very diverse and very poor continent. I wouldn’t expect all its countries to ever be free of conflict. But it has been worse before.

Don't worry the Chinese have taken over Africa.

True.

Social media has definitely contributed to an unprecedented level of craziness today. The 60s were definitely a high water mark for political upheaval, but the radicals of the 60s look pretty sane compared to what people are into today. The kind of craziness that is behind Qanon, COVID deniers, and so on would have never received the kind of attention and broad following back before the internet and social media. The main political quackery back before the internet was Lyndon LaRouche. His followers were very dedicated and had tables at just about every airport and public square in the US. But he could never get any traction in electoral politics and was pretty much shut out of main stream media. But today, LaRouche would probably be president and considered a moderate right winger compared to Trump.

My mother in law is a good example of how social media has made everyone batsh#t crazy. She has always voted Republican, but never really had any big political opinions. She has been suspended from Facebook several times for posting COVID vax conspiracy theories and was even getting into Qanon before her family stepped in. But for social media, she would have been spending her days quilting and planting posies in the garden and would have never entertained any political thought more radical that tax cuts and strong national defense.

Looks at the 1930s.

1) Great Depression. From 1929-1933 GDP fell by 30%, unemployment was 25%, and the DJIA fell by 90%. Our recent Great Recession (2008-2009) saw GDP fall by 4% with 8.5% unemployment and the DJIA down 53%. Nearly half of all U.S. banks failed in the early 1930s.

2) Dust Bowl. Even with today's global climate 1C warmer than the 1930s, many temperature and drought records remain from the 1930s in the central U.S. In fact, the summer of 2021 just tied the summer of 1936 as the hottest on record.

Then add in the sorry state of race relations in the United States plus the rise of fascism in Europe and I would say we don't have it too bad today.

mr38 wrote:

Not that long ago, a European country with top-notch eduction and an industrialized economy elected a guy who assumed absolute power, plunged nearly the entire world into war, and enslaved and murdered millions of people. Things ain't so crazy compared to that.

Yeah the liberals have done their due diligence is studying that man as their mentor.

I'm 60 and I've never seen it like this before. I'm a conservative moderate Republican and I've never seen the Democratic party become so hijacked by the radical left who I now refer to as the "Communist Left." I have no friends that are Democrats anymore. Some of these guys I used to know for decades and many of them were workout partners or old colleagues from the fire department, where I retired from.

We just parted ways and agree to never to talk to one another. Unfortunately, I live in this liberal cesspool of Lefty Colorado and it's hard to find any conservatives who think like me. I'm seriously considering selling my house (probably to some Liberal. Lol) and moving to Red Arizona where there are more conservatives for me to integrate & make friends with.

These Communists Democrats and their stupid vaccine mandates suck. They have no respect for "informed consent" and personal choice and it's nothing but medical tyranny in the 21st century. They don't care about freedom and constantly want to start fights about it. I've had & recovered nicely from Covid last month - just got my test results back and I'm positive for the SARS-COV-2 antibodies. So, I now have natural antibody protection just as good if not better than the vaccines and that should qualify to meet the mandates the same as vaccination. But no - not with these freaking Communist Democrats that still insist on vaccination! 🤬

No, the social media megaphone is just really loud now. Craziness can find an audience now. It is similar to police brutality is less now, but seems much worse because of all the body cam footage and everyone has a camera in their pocket. Body cams have made things better while also making things seem worse.

The illusion is that things haven't really changed much between Trump and Biden (or in equivalences in other countries as a general rule, there are the odd exception), even though their minds are far apart. Leaders have less control than you think. Companies are now in control, and thats actually the bigger issue. Modern society isn't in the interest of the individual, or even group, it's which companies are the biggest. There will be a natural kickback against this at some point. Maybe as the planet dies.

Then we have the echo chamber of social media, especially Twitter, which promotes a lack of proper discussion or nuance. It's probably the worst thing out there. People reference things like tweets as "news" and "facts" compared to older days of less sources of truth (which could still be manipulated). You can reinforce any crazies ideas by finding a tweet or random web page. Facebook just makes you think everyone is like you, when you're crazy, as it's good at finding crazy posts for you to read.

This all just promotes divisiveness and group politics which is always shallow and incorrect. The left criticises the right extreme and visa versa with the ignorance of pretending anyone slightly leaning towards either is part of it.

It's quite a shame really, letsrun is a bit of a mirror to it all really. It's hard to have proper discussions and debates, lots of numpties having more importance than is warranted in the name of anonymity, yet there are nuggets of intelligence, compassion and resourcefulness there (sometimes).

So, is it all more crazy now ? I'd say yes it is. Simply because before, people were too busy getting on with life to care about the nutty stuff. People had to work hard to put food on the table, rather than being a keyboard warrior. That doesn't mean things were necessarily better, there was a lot of wrong in the world, just less crazy.

+1 well said

+2. Quality post.

china virus wrote:

The liberals obsession with Trump is what's batsh!t crazy. Yeah, he's not a nice guy. Big deal. Over 4 years of the Russian collusion lies from the party of peace and unity. Now when real facts come out to reveal all of the lies, the party of peace and unity just refuses to believe them. Who are the real conspiracy following morans?

People voted for him because they were sick of the corruption and lies and flat-out indifference of their leaders to any of the real people's problems. To associate every thought that doesn't follow the liberal lying narrative with "oh, you must be a Trumper..." is flat out insane.

The definition of a moran/a$$, is someone who can't consider that other intelligent people can have differing opinions to their own.

No, he is more than not a nice guy. He tried to overturn an election, and to some degree, he still is trying to do that...sending letters to state officials asking them to decertify the election...INSANITY! He was a serious threat to our democracy. He's a serial liar, he's a racist, he's amoral, he's a dangerous egomaniacal narcissist, and he is painfully jaw-droppingly stupid. Some people voted for him in 2016 for the reasons you state, but once we saw how he governed, any person who voted for him again in 2020 was one of two things -- 1) JUST stupid; 2) racist.

Intelligent people can have a different opinion than ones I hold, but they can not have the opinion that Trump was a good President or better than Biden or any such similar nonsense. Donald Trump was the biggest threat to our democracy in my lifetime. Americans stood up against that nonsense and voted that POS human garbage out of office. There is hope for us yet.

NOPE!

9/10 for me, and quite honestly an hour ago I would have said 10/10 for me, but I just got back from the grocery store and I saw a reflection of myself in the frozen food freezer door, and DAMN I did not realize how f*cking good looking I have become as a more fit person (been running a lot these days after a long layoff). So, I will work on realizing that I am one handsome dude! So today, a 9/10 for me with regard to self-awareness. I'm a quick study though, so it might be 10/10 as early as later on today.

Star wrote:

Maybe it was always this crazy and more and more people are sharing their real thoughts on social media which can reach far more people than people’s views in the past.

Then you take the fact that people are reading more if this and that helps spread the crazy.

This. But what’s crazier now is the crazy ideas/people that have always existed get front page attention these days. Seems it used to be more ignored or just written off as that wacko over there.

Democrat sponsored attacks on family values and Christianity is the root cause of the divisiveness. Democrats despise Christians and anyone promoting family values.

rojo wrote:

Whenever people think, "Wow the world has never been so divisive or crazy", I remind myself, "Have people forgotten about the 1960? People were being executed left and right - the Kennedy borthers, MLK, Malcolm X, etc. "

We think it's bad now but no prominent people are being executed.

I've asked my parents about this several times and never gotten a good answer.

Is it just human nature to think whatever time you are living in is the craziest. This seems tame compared to the 60s. Can you imagine if Biden was executed during the last election?

I consider an execution to be different than an assassination.