This thread is permanently archived
Politicians are right about the ‘decline of the west’ – but so wrong about the causes
| The pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine played their role, but so too did “sweeping social and economic shifts, dangerous planetary changes, and massive increases in political and social polarisation”.
The turnaround in our collective fortunes has been dramatic. But it is driven by an economic system that promised personal freedom but instead delivered insecurity on a mass scale, and which has has hurt us in ...
| ... every conceivable way, from our emotional and physical wellbeing to our material circumstances.
The morbid symptoms of a crisis in wellbeing are everywhere. Across the Atlantic, the suicide rate soared by 30% in the first 20 years of the 21st century. As the “war on drugs” has escalated, so have deaths from substance abuse: in the US, they have grown exponentially since the 1970s, helping to drive the fall in life expectancy, ...
| ... while in the UK they have reached their highest level since records began.
Karl Marx once described religion as the “sigh of the oppressed creature”: today this is more of an apt description of drug addiction, driven by the self-medication of those afflicted by trauma and misery. Indeed, it is difficult to disentangle from a global leap in depression, which increased by almost a fifth between 2005 and 2015, and has also surged among US teenagers.
| While the UK suffered a particularly pronounced fall in wages in the 2010s, they have stagnated across the western world. Before the pandemic hit, the purchasing power of US workers had barely shifted for four decades.
It’s easy to be lulled into the illusion that dramatic progress is still happening. Computer chips get ever-smaller; computer processors ever-faster; mobile phones ever-more dynamic. But technological advancement does not automatically translate into ...
| ... improvements in the human condition. Across much of the west, stagnation and decline has become the defining feature of our age. If you want to understand why politics became angrier and more polarised, don’t look for facile explanations such as argumentative behaviour fostered by social media.
A grand experiment has been under way for more than a generation: what if you cut off optimism from rich societies that previously took ever-rising living standards for granted?
| On both sides of the Atlantic, economic growth has fallen since the frontiers of the state were rolled back, and that more limited growth is more likely to be sucked into the bank accounts of the gilded rich.
How does that explain, say, falling life expectancy driven by rising opiate use in the US? We know that the disappearance of secure, well-paid jobs has bred the conditions of misery in which addiction thrives.
| Growing inequality has helped spur on deteriorating mental health: rates of depression correlate with low income, for example. From the generational collapse in public housebuilding to the decimation of social care, the security that underpins a comfortable human existence has been peeled away.
And yet how little this halt in human progress is mentioned, let alone debated. With our civilisation facing multiplying existential challenges, how quickly stagnation and ...
| ... decline could become a freefall. You don’t need an overactive imagination to ponder the brutal possible consequences, especially if progressive politicians fail to offer compelling answers. Our lives are shortening, our wellbeing is falling, our security being dismantled. These are the conditions of despair, and a bitter harvest beckons.
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/05/decline-of-the-west-causes-moral-decay-living-standards
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1126121
I am not a big fan of the guardian, but they nailed this.
| bruh
https://imgur.com/gallery/pnIpEHv
| fair enough to be pasting the guardian
but you pasted the guardian from an imgur post
significant rofl
| >>be7a4c
uhhh wat? everything pasted comes from the guardian article at theguardian.com except for "I am not a big fan of the guardian, but they nailed this." which is my personal opinion.
links to the article are crossposted on imgur, 4chan and a whole bunch of other sites. dunno why you find that noteworthy. this happens to basically *every* news article in the world lol. is this your first day on the internet or something?
| >>950166 >my personal opinion just happens to match the title of the linked gallery character by character, stop being such a schizo
| >>950167
Yes, it does. So what? It's still my personal opinion. That doesn't change because I posted it on more than one website.
Out of all the midwit replies this article could've generated, yours must be the most useless one imaginable. Like, what are you even trying to say here?
Jesus fucking christ lol
| i wonder who stands to benefit from the constant stream of doomerposting that just so happens to be 100% consistent with the messaging of prolific "anonymous internet user" accounts on mainstream websites :abrathink:
neck yourself glowbro
| Did... did this g/u/rl get herself triggered for absolutely no reason?
| >>950172
I honestly have no idea of what he's even doing. Kinda sounds like 50k-chan or that other weirdo that's always here.
Either way, monthly reminder, don't feed the trolls, let them search for dopamine somewhere else etc etc. His midwit take was kinda funny though.
| >>950173
"Don't feed the trolls" really is good advice but you should’ve stopped feeding them 2 posts ago tbh.
| Yeah, that's on me. Ugh
| get trolled retard
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMGMS4sVFsI
stop doxing yourselves retards
| honestly fuck this thread in general
| This gullible schizo actually believed I'm some korean english teacher from ireland lmao. I wonder how many hours of his life he wasted looking this guy up because i copy pasted a single sentence from some rando imgur post. What a life...
| wish this korean english teacher from ireland woud shuddup fo real man
| get a life hagwon joe
| and the schizo midwit is samefagging too. I must be sleep deprived because I'm actually laughing out loud right now. This guy... what a life... LMAO LOSER
| What the hell happened here?
| Honestly? Those pro-gremlin trolls never left /news/ and are still actively supressing any and all articles they don't like. Their modus operandi consists of acting aggressive and toxic until it derails the thread. Did you also notice how fast they started accusing the other posters of stuff they themselves are guilty of? It's all straight from the kreml handbook.
| It's a shame this place isn't more heavily moderated tbh because these trolls are actively chasing people away from this otherwise charming site.
| /cyb/ is completely dead and bascially every new thread in the other boards got some troll trying to stir shit or calling random posters retards for no reason. It really feels like the trolls are winning and only 2 gurls or so cares enough to post wholesome content. Honestly this site is starting to feel another reddit board by now.
| Damn... That's a shame. I wish the trolls weren't here. No idea what they want from this.
| This started in the 80s with Reagan and Thatcher, the lie of trickle down economics had done decades of damage we're still feeling today.
| >>edf2ef Would you happen to know of any alternatives that are moderated decently? This site seems pretty dead at this point.
| Doomerism is really, really annoying.
| >>950578
>This site seems pretty dead at this point.
Are you new here? Danger/u/ is always about as active as this, and has been for years.
This thread is permanently archived
| The problem is not moral decay. It’s the withering away of our living standards, security and wellbeing.
If there is such a thing as an onward march of human progress, it has not just halted, but screeched into reverse. Last autumn, a little-discussed report issued by the United Nations noted that human development had declined in 90% of countries for two years in a row, a fall without precedent for more than three decades.