[hliyan]

I'm fairly certain we're from two different countries, but you pretty much described my feelings to a T. I wonder if this is a normal pattern, or whether the world is going through some sort of slow breakdown with no recent historical precedent?

[zanny]

Information has never been this universal and dense before. A half century ago the only tragedy or suffering you were widely exposed to was that between the bounds of your daily commute and whatever the local news station decided to talk about for half an hour every day. And negativity from everywhere is leaky, and being exposed to a whole planet of it puts in scope the scale of everything broken in the world in a way that to 99.99% of individuals is untenable to even approach improving.

Theres a reason there is a correlation between intelligence and suicide rates or why if you have someone in your family with down syndrome they always seem happy. The wider your perception the more you realize how little you can actually do to influence it. The narrower the easier it is the less there is to worry about.

Nobody has the perfect answer to this problem of course, but one option I like is to budget time for it. Spend a few hours a week "trying to fix the world" and then resign the other 164 hours to trying to fix and improve yourself. If you have explicitly allocated time for something and budget for it its less invasive in the rest of your life. Hopefully. Doesn't work for everyone.

[epiphanitus]

Yes, I've been wondering this too - especially the economic part of it.

How is it that the same dynamic could be happening in so many countries that are ostensibly so different from each other?

I am inclined think that this is because of technological disruption, but how, exactly? Is this because of automation, globalization, or perhaps technology breaking governance systems somehow?

[dyadic]

I think it's because we're sold on the idea of progress (technological and other types) as leading to improvements in our lives. But generally they aren't realised.

Automation, for example, was supposed to lead to easier lives with more free time for our own activities, but as I look around I see everyone being so so busy. As a society we are able to produce more and at a greater pace, but all the proceeds of that go up to the top and all of the rest of the people lose out from it.

[Miner49er]

Maybe a recent historical precedent that sort of matches is the late 1930's? That of course led to WWII. I wouldn't say it's as bad, but there's similarities.