[hydrok9]

I have a theory that the covid experience is behind this. We all got used to being implicitly afraid of people because of social distancing. We also became so incredibly angry about people either forcing us to do things like wear masks or about people not doing those things. On top of that we were encouraged to drive our personalities into the internet even further, and we became even more used to being isolated from other people and being able to have all of our needs fulfilled without having to actually connect with a human being. In short we were encouraged to dehumanize each other and we really haven't stopped thinking that way because it's way more convenient to not have to take other people's feelings into consideration.

[anigbrowl]

I think it certainly exacerbated it, but the trend started long before.

[hydrok9]

yeah I should have qualified it with that. definitely it didn't start with covid. but I myself have noticed this kind of strange general coldness that is persisted since and I have noticed many comments on Hacker News about it too.