Thank you! It’s great to hear some sanity in this climate of ridiculous pessimism.
I think the problem is that most young people don’t have the perspective of what America was like before 9/11 and a general concept of freedom and privacy may be old fashioned to them or something. They are too bombarded with negativity from social media to have a perspective grounded in reality. All of the negative stuff gets the most attention, and people doom-scroll through it all and get this fucked up perspective that everything is a disaster.
But the reality is we do have freedom here to do whatever we want as long as it’s not hurting someone else. That’s how it should be, for everybody.
We are also failing abysmally at educating our kids. A lot of them here are amazed to understand that amendments to the constitution are a thing that exist.
Covid is partially to blame for that but we’re also doing an awful job.
Isn’t it just a sad sign of the times that advocating for freedom, autonomy and privacy make you some kind of crazy person now? I’m old enough to remember when the world was less insane. Less divided. With no mass surveillance. People kept their politics to themselves… and social media didn’t exist.
Young people like to go on and on about how “people were so bigoted, etc. etc.” but they’ve got no idea. They weren’t alive to experience it (or were too young to remember anything.) I’m sure I’ll get a few replies to this comment telling me I’m wrong. Yeah, bigotry existed, but it was confined to smaller circles. These days, hatred of all sorts spreads rapidly over the internet, and in my own experience, the world has never felt so angry and stressed, despite all the ‘efforts’ in recent years by activists to fight it (unsuccessfully and often using harmful tactics themselves.)
I’m not sure where the world is heading, but based on the last decade, it’s looking like my decision to move out into a remote country area and simplify my life was the right choice. The world’s gone fucking crazy, and gen z’s apathy with regards to politics, privacy and apparent love of authoritarianism actually terrifies me. They have no idea what they’re advocating for, and everyone will suffer if they don’t step back and reel in their puritan bullshit.
Thank you! It’s great to hear some sanity in this climate of ridiculous pessimism.
I think the problem is that most young people don’t have the perspective of what America was like before 9/11 and a general concept of freedom and privacy may be old fashioned to them or something. They are too bombarded with negativity from social media to have a perspective grounded in reality. All of the negative stuff gets the most attention, and people doom-scroll through it all and get this fucked up perspective that everything is a disaster.
But the reality is we do have freedom here to do whatever we want as long as it’s not hurting someone else. That’s how it should be, for everybody.
We are also failing abysmally at educating our kids. A lot of them here are amazed to understand that amendments to the constitution are a thing that exist.
Covid is partially to blame for that but we’re also doing an awful job.
Isn’t it just a sad sign of the times that advocating for freedom, autonomy and privacy make you some kind of crazy person now? I’m old enough to remember when the world was less insane. Less divided. With no mass surveillance. People kept their politics to themselves… and social media didn’t exist.
Young people like to go on and on about how “people were so bigoted, etc. etc.” but they’ve got no idea. They weren’t alive to experience it (or were too young to remember anything.) I’m sure I’ll get a few replies to this comment telling me I’m wrong. Yeah, bigotry existed, but it was confined to smaller circles. These days, hatred of all sorts spreads rapidly over the internet, and in my own experience, the world has never felt so angry and stressed, despite all the ‘efforts’ in recent years by activists to fight it (unsuccessfully and often using harmful tactics themselves.)
I’m not sure where the world is heading, but based on the last decade, it’s looking like my decision to move out into a remote country area and simplify my life was the right choice. The world’s gone fucking crazy, and gen z’s apathy with regards to politics, privacy and apparent love of authoritarianism actually terrifies me. They have no idea what they’re advocating for, and everyone will suffer if they don’t step back and reel in their puritan bullshit.