Comment by ryandrake

2 days ago

I don't think this is a social class issue, it's an issue where society is failing to address widespread anti social behavior and mental illness. We've kind of given up and just accepted racism, anger, belligerence, and all kinds of mental illnesses as inevitable societal land mines that normal people have to tiptoe around. And now that they're unchecked, they're taking over. I can't remember any time in my life where we've had so many people just out there living their lives, in desperate need of help.

I mean this earnestly, and not as some sort of comeback: what would “checking” this behavior look like? What is gone in society now that checked it in the past?

I’m sympathetic to this view but I can’t really make it a coherent theory in my head. When people talk about it on the internet it doesn’t seem to go very far beyond “something changed after Covid” and maybe “social media is to blame” but those two observations don’t make for much of a theory.