[jm__87]

Ah, I dunno. I can only speak for North America, but I personally feel like between the rise of identity politics, our youngest generation reporting record high levels of depression and anxiety, a massive divide between left wing and right wing and the rise of the far left and alt right.. it feels like a lot of people have lost their mind over here.

Edit: Not really sure what HN dislikes about this post. My goal here was to offer some actual aspects of North American society which many would agree to be worse than they were in recent history as opposed to simply saying "society is broken". I was expecting some actual discussion here.

[LifeLiverTransp]

Just look at imgurs dog-mania. All those people uncapable of relationships placeboing them with those poor animals.

Naked, dancing in the moonlight insane as it gets.

[acchow]

Have you read much history?

[jm__87]

Sure, do you disagree with any of my statements on a timescale of the past 2 decades? My point is, there are some aspects of North American society that have gotten notably worse. To be sure, other aspects have gotten notably better in the same time period. But the fact that a lot of the craziness I mentioned is now mainstream I personally find to be troublesome.

[Retra]

Why do you think that any of this is new?

[naasking]

The concepts aren't new, the fact that they're now mainstream is new. Do you think Trump would have been elected 20 years ago? Do you think comedians would actually be scared to perform on college campuses 20 years ago?

The insanity was always there, but has become mainstream.

[Omnius]

These things come in waves and it happened in the early 90 late 80's also. We get ultra PC it goes to far we over correct and the start inching back to it.

[naasking]

I don't know, did we actually over correct from the "ultra PC" movements of the 80s and 90s? I don't think we've seen anything like what's happened lately.

[jm__87]

You would disagree that American politics has become more polarized in the last two decades?

[dragonwriter]

> You would disagree that American politics has become more polarized in the last two decades?

Yes. American politics is not notably more polarized now than in the time immediately preceding the Clinton impeachment. (Now, had you said either 10 or 30 instead of 20, the answer would be different.)

[Retra]

What is the special significance of the 20-year time frame? It's not more polarized now that it was in 1860. Or 1760. Or 1960.

[jm__87]

Sure... but do you think it really makes sense to compare today to 1760 or 1860?

[Retra]

When you are saying some social phenomena is "new", yes.

[jm__87]

I never said it was new. I don't see why this makes it matter more or less anyway? It's sort of irrelevant whether we have seen this social phenomenon before. What is relevant is the impact it is having on society now.

[matte_black]

They did not lose their minds. They had them stolen.