Remembering my aunts and uncles from my childhood, a lot of the older people today don’t seem to have as much energy – I come from the US.
I’ve noticed people can be erratic and easily agitated now. Almost everyone I know in their 40s and 50s is angry all the time. Heavy drinking. Not able to process new information very well.
My uncle had a kid at 50 and played with her non-stop. I don’t know anyone capable of that now.
Am I the only one seeing this?
You must log in or register to comment.
Every person alive right now has about a credit cards worth of plastic in their brain.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” wasn’t normalizing toxicity, it was training us to be able to deal with assholes. I think the world has forgotten that.
Wouldn’t be suprised if the borderline criminalization of being a child outside starting 10-30 years ago played a role in this.
Capitalism late stage is draining everyone. Also the fascism.
Smartphones, social media and uncontrolled capitalism at work.
People today are boring as fuck and addicted to phones and being enraged at disinformation.
This is the number one answer I don’t understand why your not at the top.
I experience it all the time too. Hanging out with friends, all staring at their phones. Can’t even have a conversation or wonder anything any more. The pull out their phone and ask grok the millisecond anything comes to question. Zero critical thinking.
Really hate that tech bros have commandeered their brains.
Social media is the largest drain on humanity. It’s disgusting how addicted people are to short form videos, social media validation. It’s engrained in the subconscious I see it daily. Nothing to do = grab the phone and find something. No brain power, no thoughts or drive to do anything productive or physical. These companies should be charged for a crime against humanity.
I use AI don’t get me wrong but it’s not some new person I can’t live without. I have family members that truly feel chatgpt is the friend they never had, genuinly love it, and consider it closer than other family members. Fucking insane behavior. I mean really tell it things and trust it like with their data and such. Thank it, and have their egos boosted/built by its output.
I know exactly how you feel. However, I have recently encountered a number of very young, highly intelligent people who are indeed vibrant and actually do give me some hope for the future (EDIT: both of whom, it turns out, are in the healthcare profession, so maybe there will actually be some people left to take care of me and Mrs. Erinaceus as we decline—dare to dream!) But otherwise, yeah, capitalism, late or otherwise, the aftermath of 2008, and the pandemic—many of these things are still slowly draining the life force out of older folks like me.
I think you underestimate the amount of alcohol consumed in the 70s and 80s.
And cocaine or Valium …
The cocaine probably helped with the “vibrancy.”
This is really obvious to me, but this is what happens to society when conservatives are actually in power.
There will always be people who try to be merry in hard times, but it actually crushes people everywhere.
You are seeing the effects of late stage capitalism.
People working 2 jobs and still not have as much disposable income as they had with a single income in the past.
Not having money aside of the work, no time and mental load: it kills motivation, not wanting to be creative, and your health goes downhill also and you can’t afford to treat it anyway.
If you ask a 50 something about how long they think have left, yo will have half the amount than 2 generations ago.
Everything is on fire …
I’m 56, I can wobble though a sub 2 hour half marathon. You’re spot on about money. We have no kids, and own our house now. So can afford to have time to train, have a good diet etc etc.
What’s the solution?
revolution!
Any solution would involve the wealthiest in society making slightly less money. Therefore, it won’t happen.
that’s not true btw. if we get UBI, we can spend more and companies make more money
Eating the rich.
Honestly aside of the joke there is not much can be done. You can start building communities and building a strong social network in your neck of the woods. But the writing is on the wall.
The next financial reset is coming and it’s not going to be pretty.“joke”
They taste awful.
“Equal distribution” of wealth sounds way better.but i’m hungwy for despots
The labor class finally going to fight in the class war they’re losing.
Socialism is the long term solution, but you don’t get that without first dethroning the wealthy one way or the other.
class war
Being dumb and drunk is not new to humanity
It’s entirely possible this is just attentional bias on your part. You noticed the more vibrant, active adults when you were younger because they were more interesting to you.
But generally, things are worse these days, too. I feel like people used to talk about the future optimistically when I was growing up. Maybe people still talk to kids that way now, but I don’t. And I don’t hear people doing it. So, maybe you’re on to something here.
This has been dawning on me as well.
Aside from all the things people are mentioning, my take on it: culture, at least in the U.S., has stopped. If a person finds something to be excited about, they do so in spite of their government that should otherwise be helping them flourish. We try to find joy in spite of the profound inequitable conditions that are celebrated by the elite. We have to give up a third of our paychecks to fund pointless destruction and slaughter overseas, and lavish lifestyles for our feckless politicians and federally-subsidized billionaires at home.
What collective identity can we develop under these conditions? We only find an identity defined by anger. Hatred. Resentment. We must constantly experience these feelings in order to remain grounded in reality; they are the only way we can stay in touch with the truth of things.
I’m sure it’s been articulated better elsewhere, but I’m starting to think that’s a big part of fascism: the death of culture, the destruction of what we could otherwise draw hope from. Fascism says that everything people cherish and find self-actualization in is sinful and aberrant, but offers nothing to replace them except hollow parodies of culture. In the current moment, it’s either Christian white nationalist parodies of culture (just look at literally any creative work they make; they are soulless and hollow) or AI-generated slop culture.
We’re also living through something pretty unprecedented: corporate technofascism. History has never seen fascism breed with the kind of unchecked capitalist insanity that will come to define this era. There are a thousand digital barriers between you and real life, and you are told you should be happy and excited about such “innovation” when it’s been 10 years since there was anything to be excited about.
That’s my distilled diatribe on this idea.
This is more cultural than political.
For decades, variety shows were a staple of entertainment.
Vaudeville featured a dozen or more different acts. TV had Ed Sullivan and later Cher and Carol Burnett doing shows with an array of talent. Top 40 Radio brought Dolly Parton to the city folks and Aretha Franklin to the country folks.
Now people listen to and watch exactly what they want.
Joe Blow used to see opera singers on antenna TV, now his grandkids only see it if they decide to look for it, and they usually don’t.
It just really feels like there is no future. Just grinding to live day by day. What’s the point?
The fucking world is burning, Nazis are back, we’re about to be eradicated by ai, food shortages, fuel prices rising, people can’t afford to live, racism and bigotry is on the rise and seems to be protected, corporations are working us to death, governments are actively trying to remove our rights… There’s a fuck tonne of reasons to be angry and tried now.
In the 60s the world was about to burn from nuclear holocaust
but we also had regulations on the military industrial complex. Eisenhower was spot on.
We are about to burn from a nuclear holocaust, wtf you on about.
Every generation has its challenges. The great depression, ww1, ww2, the cold war. Climate change with a heavy dose of techno-facism seems to be ours.
The only way to guarantee we lose is to do nothing. To claim defeat before the battle has even been fought. That’s what he’s on about my dude.
Yeah I’m aware of that, but currently we seem to be living through all of those combined ATM.
Well if that’s what he was on about, shoulda probably expressed that a bit better.
I think they were just vaguely talking about the cold war. But yeah, could’ve been me specific. It’s a challenge no doubt, I don’t blame people for being pessimistic
I try to be as optimistic that it’s gonna all settled down, but it’s getting harder to keep that optimism up.
Just the cost of rent is enough to make me spiral
we are wage slaves and no one is watching out for us
At this point I think some slaves had it better
Experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other.
— Frederick Douglass
