Why are people so awful now?

Do you see some of the comments grown adults make online? Maybe it’s now that all these people now have smartphones but used to be secluded to the backwoods

Not to sound like everyone's granpa, but yes, younger people seem to be much more disrespectful. And they can, because what will happen to them? Nothing. If you mouthed off, or talked back to a teacher when I was in school, you could get smacked, jacked up against the wall, or even paddled. Everyone got it. Maybe except for girls and the ones that were very good students. When there are consequences, people think twice. When there are none, why not flip someone off, cut someone off, be disrespectful, be abusive. Because there are no consequences. None.

Look at the way some people treat the police.

People are unhappy because we've willingly/intentionally created a world that prioritizes corporate profit over human happiness. Your health provider is grumpy because they went into a profession where they thought they'd be helping people, but instead the MBA who actually runs their practice demands that they crank through 30 appointments per day with the focus on billing as many RVUs as possible rather than actually helping anyone. They have 15 minutes to review your chart, see you, place orders, and write their note, and if they don't squeeze everything into that window they're doing it on their own time tonight. People in just about every job are getting squeezed similarly.

As you said, there are too many sh* people. The 'jerk personality' actually works well in this fxxking world. Being a dickhead ahead of someone prevents you from being taken advantage of

I love to infuriate people by finding joy in my life.

Unfortunately, the matrix and corporate greed have forced people to be preoccupied with comparison, also to be miserable and lastly, taught people that selfish behavior is advantageous.

American society is mentally ill, and we have been for decades. Trump is only a symptom. It all started after the assassination of JFK. Many Americans, particularly the younger generation, simply threw up the hands and said, "What the hell? What's the point? Why bother?" Fuel was added to the fire with the Vietnam War, and the assassinations of RFK and MLK. The youth responded with drug abuse, promiscuity, violent protests and resistance to authority.

Tune in, Turn on, and drop out, man.

Actually, urban and suburban posters are more aggressive IMO.

Someone’s taken a hit of Didion

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

- Socrates

This element always existed, the difference is the mask of social media and never having to meet anyone face to face. It has taken the human element of interaction away. For me, it's why I have only ever posted here and it's basically anonymous.

This makes no sense but it made me laugh.

Imagine living in a world where:

You do everything right, go to school, get good grades, and do a great job only to have your livelihood sent overseas or replaced by AI.

You get tantalizingly close to realizing the dream of home ownership only to keep losing bidding wars to private equity firms, corporate landlords, and Air BnB enthusiasts.

You cannot get a promotion at work because Baby Boomers won't f**king retire. In fact, your 68-year-old boss needs you to create his presentation decks and reports because he doesn't know how to use the software.

You live in a world where 90% of white collar jobs will soon be eliminated along with 90% of customer service/entry level gigs leaving you to learn a trade that you have no interest or aptitude for or to become a UI slave.

You are Gen X and you have seen your retirement savings take a 30-50% loss on three different occasions. Now on the cusp of retirement, your government is creating huge amounts of inflation, antagonizing trade partners, and setting the markets up for another big crash.

You are a Baby Boomer that still needs to work because you blew too much money on conspicuous consumption. Each day, you feel more and more obsolete while dealing with the very thinly veiled hatred of your underlings. You sporadically hear from your children and your five grandchildren exist in theory because you haven't seen any of them in over five years.

The American Dream turned out to be a huge con job. The systems that we took for granted are collapsing due to incompetence and graft. Few people have any real skills and they charge exorbitant fees. Social media makes you feel like a failure. You hardly know anyone in your neighborhood and media tells you to be wary of your neighbors because you don't truly know who they are.

Our society is a mess and the strain is showing.

Leftism has bred entitlement among people. This is what you are seeing.

At what time in global history have people NOT been horrible to each other? The history books are filled with tales of war, greed, corruption, betrayal, conquest, slavery, plundering and pillaging. Only thing different now is how many people can broadcast their horrible thoughts all over the internet for others to see.

I agree that we are in a bad pivot in the US right now with this administration and are at risk for losing our freedoms. They are doing it systematically getting people used to losing freedoms a little at a time.

The move that I worry about most would be a vote to postpone elections and the balance of power during some kind of crisis that they will create. If you have seen the pattern, they cause chaos and then take credit for bringing things back to the way they were before. Watch them do this in Minnesota.

But, I am hoping for better. One of my relatives was hung in Salem when they labeled her a witch. I like to think we have come a long way forward since then and hopefully not slipping back to that bizarre reality.

The anonymity of the internet has allowed people's worst instincts to come to the fore and to be validated (see this forum most of the time). It's reinforced by our leaders (well, one in particular) who has abandoned all semblance of diplomatic protocol and now behaves like a petulant 12 year old. That further validates the behaviors of those who follow him. To be sure, there are also many rude people on the other side of things, too. Long story short, our modern globalization plus technological anonymity has allowed us to become totally unaccountable for our words and actions. Pre-internet, and pre-globalization, people were physically accountable for their words and actions with their neighbors. If you screwed up, you were actually screwed.