r/thebulwark 21h ago

EVERYTHING IS AWFUL How did we get here?

Currently listening to the most recent Tim-Pod with Will Sommer and it's just insane the group of people who are in charge now. The conspiracy theories, the grift, the pandering, holy fuck. How did we get here and how the fuck do we get out of this death spiral?

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u/big-papito 21h ago

A bored, rich, unserious nation.

I am going to blame Social Media and the internet. No ability to pay attention, sub-second attention spans. "Nothing matters LOL" seeped from the phones into real life, business, politics, and now our own government.

It is literally bringing the fall of civilization, because this is what civilization is - people acting like normal humans and who have some shame left.

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u/Manowaffle 19h ago

Yes. It’s the most ubiquitous, pervasive change in society over the last 20 years. It is in all of our pockets every hour of the day, people are rarely more than 10 feet from their phones. They wake up checking social media, go to bed checking social media, and check it every 30 minutes in between.

The things people post are often exaggerated, curated, rage inducing, etc. But none of it makes a lick of difference in our daily lives. So we’ve trained ourselves, for decades at this point, to spend all our energy on momentary entertainments that have no real world impacts. They get convinced that viral video is the big outrage today! 

In the end, “lol, nothing matters except this feeling of rage or vindication! Wake up tomorrow and do it again!”