I'm in my 50's and looking forward, I just don't see anything good in the future for this world.
Probably people have felt this way throughout all of history but this time seems different.
Probably people have felt this way throughout all of history but this time seems different.
In my 30s and I make a habit of asking people in the generations above me if they felt the same when they were younger / my age. As in, did things always seem this futile, clogged, and broken?
The answer is always "no".
Today we are facing a sort of nebulous destabilization of social institutions and norms that seems to be related to digital computing and communication technologies but we can't nail down what particular aspects cause the problem or how it manifests. We are not sure if any particular problem is related to The Problem or not. Some people don't believe that The Problem exists at all. We have no idea what the consequences could be if The Problem is not addressed, nor do we have a good way to tell if it's currently getting worse, barring some kind of unexpected catastrophe like a bunch of high-ranking government officials accidentally inviting a journalist to an illegal chat room where they are planning air strikes.
Perhaps none of this means that The Problem is worse than anything we have faced before, or even as bad. But humans have always gotten through our problems by turning our intellect onto them, and it frightens us when our best weapon doesn't seem to be working.
What is the Internet doing to society? That's the trillion-dollar question.
Capitalism, industrialization, and urbanization had left many people behind. Communism and fascism arose as responses to that, along with more moderate ideologies that ended up joining forces with capitalism. Today we have globalization and a different flavor of capitalism, with a new set of ideologies offering solutions to those who were left behind.
World War I was long and devastating but there would be an end to it; wars don't continue forever by default. WWII was potentially cataclysmic but we were fighting coherently with a unified front, throwing everything we had towards beating it. You could buy war bonds, grow a victory garden, ration your use of gasoline/rubber/steel; do your part and we'll get through this.
The modern issues like climate change are global, imminent, and increasingly present, and there's no contemporary feeling of solidarity and effort against them. We've been told annually that the window to save ourselves is closing rapidly, and yet carbon emissions are still increasing. That's right, they're not going down too slowly, they're still going up.
Pick another modern issue, like education (which is arguably a root solution to these other issues). It's getting worse, so are we trying like hell to improve it? Teachers are trying but can't seem to move the needle. And the US is about to dismantle its national Department of Education to improve "efficiency".
I've looked at the situation and despite a desire for optimism, I have to be realistic. All efforts against the current slate of problems are off by an order of magnitude. Please, tell me a story, any story at all, for how this gets better within our lifetimes, without science fantasy like colonizing Mars or limitless fusion power (as though either of those things would help anyway).
This is a very American view. In Europe/China/Japan/USSR, you could do all those things, and you and your family could still die tomorrow in an aerial bombing or get rounded up by the Gestapo/Kempeitai/KGB and sent to a concentration camp/human experiment lab/gulag.
Here is an interview with kids in 1966 about what they think life will be like in future https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8xX3usi4c
Being "connected" is basically a requirement instead of a cool hobby you can do after hours now, and so your data gets stolen 24x7, and you get advertised / marketed to, regardless of how resistant you are, eventually, it gets you.
And well.. feeling a bit like those people in 1930s germany.. "No good can come of this".. Just not sure where to run to anymore - most countries have their (virtual) walls up too (no visas), and the one out (Canada) isn't necessarily a sure thing as a backup..
There’s good comedy in recognizing how you feel about it isn’t unique in time and then following up with thinking this time it’s different.
Everyone thinks this time is different. The kids think they’re the first ones to really want change and the old folks thinks this new generation is really the bad one. The kids are rebelling against you and when you were a kid you weren’t paying enough attention to understand what was going on in the world.
If the world stayed the same and you thought the same way as you did when you were a kid and the next generation thought the same way as you do now, we’d still be living as animals.
You're assuming that people in the past were wrong when they felt that way. People love to bring up Socrates being charged with "corrupting the youth" in 399 BC but always seem to forget that Athens was conquered by the more rural, agrarian, and presumably more socially conservative Macedonians 60 years later.
You can focus on whatever is wrong in the world or you can be fearful of new tech as everyone who ages is wont to do, or you can focus on the excitement of entering a new age and the inevitable good that will bring. One day soon deaths from car wrecks may go to near zero. Robotics will be able to produce healthy food cheaply as well as handle all sorts of menial labor. AI is empowering people to "vibe code" and build games and software with just their imagination. It's a very groovy time.
As things are going, it looks like it's more going to bring incredible wealth to the very few. That don't pay taxes.
> It seems like the 21st century is on the cusp of becoming like the one everyone dreamed about in the 20th century.
No, to be honest, for the time being it looks like it's going to turn into a techno-fascist hell-hole.
This is a world that brings wealth to a few. It's just deeper down into the same hole we've been digging for the past 50+ years. It's a world in which individuals own nothing and have no control over their lives.