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I'm hearing so much about people all over going utterly nutshit crazy, literally in many cases, and I feel like it's all going to reach a boiling point before long. Just in this area, there's been two school shootings within a day of each other!

It doesn't even have to be violence, necessarily. Antisocial behavior in general seems to be running rampant. Despite the fact that the Internet allows us to connect to each other more easily than ever, everyone seems so horrendously self-centered that common courtesy is practically a thing of the past. The general rule of thumb I see is most people seem to think "It's somebody else's problem."

What happened? What can be done? I figure people are miserable and some of this will sort itself out if said misery can be abated, but I wouldn't know where to start. Greater mental health focus? I consider unprovoked violence of any sort to be a sign of failing mental health, but what do you do with people like that?

Or are we all just fucked and I should save myself the trouble?

There's no hope left anymore for this world.
All that's left for us to do is just hide under the tables like those nuclear war posters say to do.

Things will change eventually, but that will take a really long time

In a world of chaos the only constant is yourself. Only you can count on yourself to do the right thing and still be normal while everything and everyone around you goes to shit.

I really resent the idea that the world is worse today than it was 10/20/50 years ago and so on. The world was always terrible, the world will always be terrible, it just takes on new forms in our constantly changing world. But life goes on, and we make the best out of what the world gives us. Once we solve one issue another issue will rise up the very next day. We can't let stuff like this bring us down. Humanity has survived this long for a reason. I can guarantee you in 20+ years people will be looking back at the 2000s and 2010s and think we had a golden age going and the world is going to shit in their time.

Things are actually better than they ever have been. Poverty is at decreasing and by the end of the century 3rd world countries will be mostly non-existent (and the issues that come with them like overpopulation and disease), despite what the media says crime has been decreasing since the '70s and so has teen pregnancy, the conflicts we see like with Ukraine and ISIS are nothing compared to the civil unrest of the 20th century (not just talking Vietnam and the world wars, look up all the political changes in the middle east and south/central america, the Iraq-Iran war, etc) and we don't have the constant nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. new technological and medical advances are made every year (NANOMACHINES, SON! )and this generation may reach virtual immortality.

The Happening's a-comin'.

Are you a real person.

No, he's an *edge*hog.

The world always seems to be going to shit, but the reality is that its almost always getting better and you just can't notice it yet.

I just wanted to make a joke ;-;

"You had your chance and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try." – Homer Simpson

Sonic Prime wrote:

I just wanted to make a joke ;-;

Sorry, kid, Poe's law

Lord Starscream wrote:

Things are actually better than they ever have been. Poverty is at decreasing and by the end of the century 3rd world countries will be mostly non-existent (and the issues that come with them like overpopulation and disease), despite what the media says crime has been decreasing since the ‘70s and so has teen pregnancy, the conflicts we see like with Ukraine and ISIS are nothing compared to the civil unrest of the 20th century (not just talking Vietnam and the world wars, look up all the political changes in the middle east and south/central america, the Iraq-Iran war, etc) and we don’t have the constant nuclear sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. new technological and medical advances are made every year (NANOMACHINES, SON! )and this generation may reach virtual immortality.

Don't forget that drug abuse in teens is at an all-time low for every substance except pot

I'd just like to share with you guys my favorite piece of writing of all time.

"I’m happy to tell you there is very little in this world that I believe in. Listening to the comedians who comment on political, social, and cultural issues, I notice most of their material reflects an underlying belief that somehow things were better once and that with just a little effort we could set them right again. They’re looking for solutions, and rooting for particular results, and I think that necessarily limits the tone and substance of what they say. They’re talented and funny people, but they’re nothing more than cheerleaders attached to a specific, wished-for outcome.

I don’t feel so confined. I frankly don’t give a fuck how it all turns out in this country--or anywhere else, for that matter. I think the human game was up a long time ago (when the high priests and traders took over), and now we’re just playing out the string. And that is, of course, precisely what I find so amusing: the slow circling of the drain by a once promising species, and the sappy, ever-more-desperate belief in this country that there is actually some sort of “American Dream, “ which has merely been misplaced.

The decay and disintegration of this culture is astonishingly amusing if you are emotionally detached from it. I have always viewed it from a safe distance, knowing I don’t belong; it doesn't include me, it never has. Now matter how you care to define it, I do not identify with the local group. Planet, species, race, nation, state, religion, party, union, club, association, neighborhood improvement committee; I have no interest in any of it. I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.

So, if you read something in this book that sounds like advocacy of a particular political point of view, please reject the notion. My interest in “issues” is merely to point out how badly we’re doing, not to suggest a way we might do better. Don’t confuse me with those who cling to hope. I enjoy describing how things are, I have no interest how they “ought to be.” And I certainly have no interest in fixing them. I sincerely believe that if you think there’s a solution, you’re part of the problem. My motto: Fuck Hope!

P.S. Lest you wonder, personally, I am a joyful individual with a long, happy marriage and a close and loving family. My career has turned out better than I ever dreamed, and it continues to expand. I am a personal optimist but a skeptic about all else. What may sound to some like anger is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt. I view my species with a combination of wonder and pity, and I root for its destruction. And please don’t confuse my point of view with cynicism; the real cynics are the ones who tell you everything’s gonna be all right.

P.P.S. By the way, if, by some chance, you folks do manage to straighten things out and make everything better, I still don’t wish to be included.”

-George Carlin, from the preface of Brain Droppings

I am envious of this man's detachment. True, there are many things I don't give a fuck about that many others do, but when I do find myself caring nine times out of ten I end up greatly disappointed.
So here's my advice:
There really are times when it's okay to have some emotional investment, where you might get some satisfactory return on the effort. They're rare, but… well, you might bump into one by accident. Annually. Maybe.
But when all this shit's getting you down, just go ahead and take a look at the big picture. See the world for what it ultimately is- a big clusterfuck, yes, but more importantly, a big joke. And try to find the punchline.

I've given plenty of thought to this issue since the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999, when people started looking at every socially marginalized loner who liked violent video games as though they were a ticking time bomb. That was essentially who I was when I attended high school 15 years ago. So naturally, I became concerned with finding out what the real issues were. Here's what I've come up with:

1) Frustrability. This is a term that was coined by Dr. Jack Enter, an expert in the field of law enforcement leadership. It's the idea that younger people in the United States have not developed adequate ways of coping with frustration in their lives. One reason for it is the culture of parenting in recent years that believes it's healthy to tell every child that they are special, and they should never be discouraged. I can see that the language of this culture still persists in my own son's elementary school, where no child can be called "failing" or even "below expectations". The lowest grade a kid can receive is "developing". The teacher essentially cannot say a child is doing a bad job, even if they believe two plus two equals pig.

Unfortunately, this philosophy simply doesn't translate to the real world. An employer is not going to give an unqualified kid a good job just because they believe they're special. That person you want to date isn't going to accept you for who you are just because your parents think you're so great. Some of these young adults become truly discouraged for the first time in their lives and simply don't know how to handle it. This might explain how one unstable individual in California convinced himself that evil women were to blame for being unlucky in love, and wound up killing six people over it.

2) Parental apathy. Another recent trend in the United States is the increasing number of households where both parents work, and care of the children is passed along to nannies or day cares. Now, most child care professionals do a great job and aren't going to screw up any kids just because they're not their real mommies/daddies. None of them, however, can truly be a substitute for a real parent. Kids know the difference, and as soon as they get the idea in their minds that their own mom and dad don't have time for them, they take a step toward a thought process that devalues human life.

On a more basic and practical level though, there needs to be someone in a kid's life to notice when they're behaving badly and correct the behavior. The Columbine shooters started assembling an arsenal of weapons, including handguns, shotguns and explosive devices months prior to the actual massacre. They weren't exactly discreet either; some of those weapons were stored in their parents' garages. Not all of the blame rest on the parents in this case but seriously: you'd think someone involved in their child's life would have noticed this sooner.

3) Infamy. Notice how I didn't include the names of any shooters in this reply. The media tends to go with the opposite strategy. Anyone who commits a mass shooting and gets a high enough body count gets at least 15 minutes of fame. Let's say you were a socially marginalized loner who didn't know how to deal with disappointment and couldn't comprehend why everyone around you couldn't see how important you were. Wouldn't having your name and picture emblazoned across every television and newspaper-- for any reason-- start to look pretty attractive?

These massacres equal ratings for 24/7 news networks that need a reason to keep people tuned in. So when they happen, they get all the aerial shots, speculation and expert opinions they can muster and urge the public to stay tuned for the latest updates. Combine this fact with an individual with a personality disorder that includes inappropriate attention seeking, and you can see a recipe for disaster being drafted.

TL;DR: Mental disorders and violence are older than humanity. Even guns have been around for over 400 years. It's the culture here in the U.S. that has changed. We need to stop raising kids that think mass shootings are a good way to get noticed.

I don't have much to say because Crimson and Starscream basically said all I was going to and more. If you're young and you think the world sucks now more than ever, it's because you never saw the world how it used to be so you can't really compare it. If you're old and think it sucks now more than ever, it's because you look at the past through rose-colored glasses (basically a nostalgia-fag). If you looked at the past objectively there would be no better time to live than now. The thing is that better doesn't always mean perfect. The world still sucks and always will, it'll just suck less. For example, all those old cranky people are always spitting all over the young people of today how we're all lazy and stupid and immoral: News Flash, the youth of today are significantly smarter and more moral than the when those people were young. Just look at the statistics. Every reliable statistic you'll find will show that younger people today do better than in the past.

I agree with this and what Crimson said, too. I don't think people in general are stupid or immoral, and if anything young people are less likely to be either. Education needs an overhaul if they're going to remain smarter than previous generations, though. There's too much emphasis on testing and not enough on actual learning in grade schools, and most of us who attended a liberal arts college in the past 20 years would say our undergraduate classes didn't prepare us to get a career.

In many ways, we're doing better, but it's also true that a bachelor's degree was less expensive and gave you a much better chance at landing a job 50 years ago. Hell, I even got a master's degree and all it did was cause many employers to dismiss me for being "overqualified". When I did finally get a job after grad school, my starting salary was only $30k. It's the same story across the U.S.: tuition and cost of living is higher but average salaries haven't gone up at the same rate.

I've got no rose-colored glasses when it comes to the past. My parents and grandparents faced their own unique challenges, and many of them were more difficult to overcome. I just think the progress we've made is a standard we need to live up to, not some laurels we can rest on.

You guys should read Cracked more often. Particularly their articles on how batshit insane things used to be in the past. More crime, less safety. More violence, less progression

Our modern era is sunshine and roses compared to what it used to be 100 years ago. The only thing we have more of is melodrama

Information technology has brought all of the horrors of the world to light. Making it seem like everything is suddenly worse

But the truth is people were always that bad. We just didn't have the internet to report on every last one that threw puppies into a river

Here's the thing though: by being more aware of it's own crimes, the world is getting steadily more moderated. Check out how much crime rates have dropped in the past decade and how more progressive things have been getting. We don't even have wars like we used to.

Unfortunately the good news ends at human nature getting better, Planet Earth and our environment seems to be getting worse compared to previous generations

BSOD, I like you. I really respect you, I do. But it's hard to take you seriously when you start sentences with "You guys should read Cracked more often." Other than that, I completely agree with you, that problems seem bigger now simply because we are aware of more of them, whereas before things looked better only because problems never really surfaced and were kept secret, even if they were most likely far worse than today.

The dark side to more stating of problems is that sometimes we overstate the problems. That is, for the most part, all major news companies are essentially all yellow journalism, that is, all the stories are hyped to be the biggest, most important, more world-changing, life-shattering thing possible. And that simply is not true. But it has to be true in order for already falling news sales to slow their rapid descent into bankruptcy. Because hype sells. No one wants to read an article with the words "This probably will have no impact on your lives" written in big bold letters on the top, no matter how true that may be. Every story has to be the big scoop, the game changer, the stunning exposé that sends shockwaves across the world and has people up in arms. But that just isn't the case. Not every story does matter or will matter like how people assume it will. Problem is, all the competing news outlets up the ante on all their reports, so now you're faced with the ultimatum of bending the truth on the importance of your issues or losing revenue. So it becomes a race to the top, to see who can make their stories get people most in a 2012-style panic about the world and show this article to everyone they know and share it on social media and stand on street corners with the magazine glued onto a stick, yelling "The end is near! Newsweek hath proclaimed it, thus it is so!" Fatalistic fanaticism sells.
TL:DR: The media says the world is catching hellfire because that sells better than saying it's nicely charred with a side of asparagus and mashed potatoes.

If you only focus on the bad stuff the world's naturally going to look like shit. Besides only the powers that be can really make the big changes that need to be made.

Have we already conquered the threat of extinction? According to this passage, we may very well have a bright future ahead of us. But before we jump to conclusions, it's only fair to point out that we're not out of the woods yet. There could very well be another Great Filter in the future -- one just as stingy as the filters of our past.

Bitch,please. By the nd of the century, this world will be as bad as south park.

We haven't conquered extinction. One giant-ass meteor would wipe our species out. Until we colonize another planet, we can only be as invincible as Earth is… and there are plenty of things that could make this world uninhabitable.

Also, if there's one thing that this year's ebola pandemic has proved, it's that quarantine is more challenging than we realized. The Liberian government successfully established a quarantine zone in affected areas which worked for a while, until the local population rioted. Chanting slogans such as "there is no ebola!" they tore down the barriers and several infected people quietly went missing. That's not exactly an encouraging precedent.