It’s bleaker because everyone knows a lot more. People back in the day were for lack of a better word- naive. They had no idea what others were doing outside of their neighborhood and what was in the newspapers. There are incredible, chronic hidden pressures in the world now even if you individually disengage from social media and the like.

I’m not arguing that today is the worst time to ever exist in the history of humanity.

I’m arguing there are legitimate reasons why people are exhausted and disillusioned with the current state of the world.

In the Great Depression there was community and hope. People could band together, form unions or political movements.

Today, computers allow for mass dystopian control. Cameras and algorithms everywhere with no chance of appealing to an actual human.

There are multiple kinds of suffering, and even if more people have sufficient nutrition and health than in the great depression, it's much harder to see hope for the future today.

This might be controversial, and I'm not saying it has to be the case, but I believe at least part of it is due to lack of sunlight / outside movement (vs all day in office, car, train, home with stuffy air and sometimes not even openable windows) and nutrition (too much processed and fortified food, not enough protein for many people).

I'm trying to focus on both in my life, and I have become much happier as a result.

20-30 years ago was 1996-2006. Granted, I was younger back then, but in my mind this post Cold War, young Internet, pre-smartphone age was the best of times. Since then life got easier in some ways, harder in others. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about today, but how do you think we're so much better off now?

I think people are actually increasingly exhausted and disillusioned with life, but that increase is basically entirely due to spending hours doomscrolling and similar behavior.

One could argue that both parents having to work is much more difficult than when one person could support a household. Houses, healthcare and education are objectively much more expensive as well. It's not "victim mindset", it's literal exhaustion because everything is much more expensive. There's also no way to retire vs pensions and other baby boomer offramps.

I don't need people to tell me. My rent and paycheck are a very convincing argument in and of themselves.

>I've lived all over the place and one thing I've seem priliferate is this mindset of "I'm a victim, doing this is too hard, so I just won't for X and Y reasons" while folks order Uber eats.

There's a lot I can do by myself. But at the end of the day, someone choosing not to ghost me for a hangout or take the time to get together regularly is a 2-way street. Even pre-pandemic, it's been said people are flakier than ever.

There are systematic reasons to explain this, but on a micro level: "just work harder" is not a solution to friendship.

Life has become increasingly expensive. Safety nets that used to be there, aren’t anymore. We’re surrounded by enshittification. Social divides, and antagonism between social groups are high.

Your contempt for humanity is blinding you to real issues people face every day. Yes, some things have gotten better over the years, but some things have gotten a lot worse.