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Comment by charred_toast | Hacker News Reader

Can we acknowledge we live in a dystopian era yet? What further has to happen?

If we're in a dystopian era, that must be in comparison to something. What era was, on the balance of factors, better than today?

A dystopian era is incredibly subjective in and of itself. I'm sure there are quite a few people in power right now who feel it is the dawn of a new golden (gilded?) age for them.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. It is the age of rationalists, it is the age of complete morons in government. It is the epoch of incredulity, it is the epoch of fake news.

In terms of sentiment, this came out yesterday:

>More than half of Americans (59 percent) said they consider this the lowest point in U.S. history that they can remember — a figure spanning every generation, including those who lived through World War II and Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/11/lowest-point...

I do not know about you but my peer group has been acknowledging that for some time now.

People have to have a measurably worse life now than they did before, for one. "I don't like President Trump" isn't a valid response, even if he is an idiot.

There's a massive amount of economic documentation on wage stagnation just for starters. This is of course open to challenge or refutation, but bashing straw men does nothing to advance discussion.

Teen suicide is trending the wrong way which is my main argument.

Certainly true, although one can also point out that prices for a lot of things have gone down, with quality improvements in some arenas as well. It's tough to determine if wage stagnation has truly hurt the median American. I'm not sure why you're being downvoted for this post.

I only bring up Trump because a lot of people argue his mere existence and rhetoric as bringing down their quality of life, which is a nonsense point that isn't worth an initial consideration until his negativity is firmly entrenched in legally established policy.

I see what you're saying, although I disagree slightly on the rhetoric/policy thing. Rhetoric is a leading indicator and often guides practice before policy has been put in place. I think Latino people are objectively less safe from discrimination (both official and informal) than they were a few years ago, for example. There hasn't been any formal policy against Latino people, but stoking the fires of racial resentment emboldens bigots and has a chilling effect on the targets of bigotry, or those who might be mistaken for being targets.

This is offered to supplement rather than refute your point though.

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