Why has the world suddenly become such a hilarious shitshow?

I'm throwing in my hat here with those that have already pointed out that no matter how good or bad things are, the media NEVER says it's good, optimism doesn't sell.

Though I've never seen the media as toxic as it is right now against "dissent" from the progressive viewpoint, in my PERSONAL life at least, but it's never been a paragon of purity (yellow journalism anyone?)

The way the mainstream media seems to be favoring narratives over fact is almost certainly an effect of the 24 hour news cycle and the information age where you, as the media consumer, can seek out only what you want to hear, at any time, and it leads to large groups of people getting a very very incorrect "pulse" or "temperature" on events because they ignorantly or purposely blot out the opposition, and have convinced themselves that there IS (or rather, almost nearly WAS) this golden age where finally everyone in the country thought and acted just like them and we'd reached utopia, and then something happened that proved to them they were wrong (Trump), and rather than get some historical perspective and actually think about things, they've exploded in a rage.

I'm not overly worried, this will correct itself, I don't know how, but people cannot stay this white-hot with rage forever, certainly not 4 years, certainly not 8, so that's why I'm not marching in the streets or blogging about the End of Days, I have faith in the institutions run by common people. On a community-by-community level, the will of the common person to ultimately live a normal and peaceful life will provide the unseen inertia to keep the crazies from being anything other than loud and noticeable.

I mean, the other day I saw a car in the street with it's hood up

Stopped and asked if the driver needed a jump.

Turns out they were just a kid low on oil and were frustrated because their father was trying (and failing) to talk them through how to check the level over a phone. I gave them a crash course on how to read the dipstick, where to put more in, and the warning signs of when to park the car before you blew the engine. They thanked me, buttoned the car up, and got on with life. And they were a 20 something young lady, I'm a 40 something icky white male, and the whole time, NOBODY said word one about "privilege" or "mansplaining" or "rape culture" or anything.... normal people will outlast the crazies, crazy people aren't stable, this isn't a war you have to fight, you've already won by simply being a decent individual at the end of the day.
 
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Ruin said:
The worlds always been weird. In the forties a failed art student with a gay mustache got pissed and damn near conquered Europe.
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I'd actually say the problem that makes the world a shitshow these days is the internet - not because the technology itself is voodoo magic that makes people crazy, but because the internet gives such a wide exposure to hilarious crazy people that I have yet to see any other medium top.
 
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TowinKarz said:
I'm throwing in my hat here with those that have already pointed out that no matter how good or bad things are, the media NEVER says it's good, optimism doesn't sell.
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A journalismfag in my Western Civilization class hit the nail on the head when she told us about her trip to the local news station for a project. The lead anchor basically said, "If it doesn't have blood, violence, or bickering, then it isn't news". So, yeah. Sensationalism sells.
 
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I would disagree with the premise that nothing is new under the sun- things continue to happen that have never happened before, and I am sure we always be surprised. I make this argument well aware that most will attempt to reduce many of those events to variations on things which have come before, which is only, of course, in the nature of human arrogance. People will continue to pretend to know it all. I'm as guilty of it as anyone.

At the same time, those things are happening at a much lower rate socially and politically, and generally accelerating scientifically. One is more notable to the average human than the other. Whatever the most "ridiculous" era in history was, by whatever criterion we are judging it, has probably already occurred. My vote might be unusual in that I wouldn't pick the 20th century, but probably the rise of Christianity or Islam, which I think entailed a greater deal of change culturally, philosophically, legally, and of course, spiritually, especially when you stretch it over the course of their long existences. Since I think we are much more likely to get a third world war (whatever form that takes) than we are to see another prophet rise out of irrelevant backwater to convert 1/7th of the planet to a totally original worldview based solely on faith in their word, I would argue those periods were more "unique" and I think "unique", "absurd", "out of place" etc. are better ways to define a "hilarious shitshow" or "ridiculous era" because of the chaos that always entailed or exacerbated. Massive genocides and wars, celebrities turned politicians, and so on seemed to have happened at much greater pace.

That said, it's natural for us all to feel like our era is so vibrant, exciting, absurd, and all those others adjectives, simply because this is the only time (as far as any of us know) that we will ever be alive, experiencing it, and it will always necessarily feel more surprising, exhilarating, and even funny than the past for that reason. We're living in the now, the now is new to us as human beings 100% of the time, and the joke is much funnier and the shitshows so much more intense because we haven't read about them 100 times before. There are no spoilers in this movie, we're all going to find out together. That's the amusement, and even at times the black tragedy of life. We all know, for example, how the American Civil War ended, and no matter how batshit crazy an entire affair like that must have been (or at least seemed), we can't experience it for ourselves. That's why people talk about the prospect of a second one in a social context much more often than the outcome of the first at your local tavern. I'll throw myself under the bus (again) and say that I'm as fanatical, serious, and die-hard of a Southern Nationalist as you will ever find, but I don't start a Civil War debate thread in Deep Thoughts. There's no point. The South lost. I might be bitter about that outcome for the rest of my life, as a person might be about anything, but what's happening here and now overrides even the strongest past emotions (or emotions over the past) because the present is all we can ever know.

tl;dr everything will always feel the most intense and absurd to you because this is the only time you'll ever experience life and the past is nothing but a fleeting specter that informs of us of what the present could be like.
 
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Jon-Kacho said:
has it always been so ridiculous?
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Yes, but no.

I like to believe it's due to the increase in connectivity of the world. We have faster and wider access to information, and a lot of the information that interests people happens to be crazy as fuck. The world has just become more aware of how much ridiculous stuff is out there.

However, because we're inundated with that stuff, it normalizes it. We've had Schwarzenegger, Ventura, and now Trump...would it really be surprising if another celebrity were elected president? I've heard half-hearted jokes about trying to get Jon Stewart to run.

On a more local scale, I think being able to only surround themselves with people and messages that reinforce their pre-existing insane beliefs (TRP, furries, etc) is contributing to the descent of society into the Silly Zone. Furthermore, being able to surround themselves with an echo chamber of *opposing* beliefs (SJWs, anime nazis, etc) has the effect of making a minority of the population seem much more loud, vocal, and threatening.

tl;dr We've only become aware of the insanity of the world, but that awareness is a feedback loop that causes more insanity. The old insanity becomes the new normal.
 
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Spunt said:
Even what's happening in Syria right now wouldn't even count as a "front" in WWII.
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It's the Winter War with sand and much less discipline on both sides. Not a front in the big war, just a symptom of political change in an isolated area

Spunt said:
What's new is the breakdown of the mainstream media. But broadcast news has only been a thing for less than a century. Before big media, people got news by rumour, speculation, world of mouth and travelling bards. We're heading back there now, because Social Media makes stories, true or not, travel around the globe instantly. And the idea that the big media was ever a particularly accurate way to get information was always nonsense - governmental or corporate interests were always in control of the message. The democratisation of news has the big monoliths losing control of what people see and hear, and they're shitting their pants about it because they could be on their way out as quickly as they arrived.
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This is incredibly true, we're watching large news corps disintegrate because they can no longer provide the exact cultural and confirmation bias the average viewer wants. It's why obviously biased blogs turned news sources like Buzzfeed, Salon, Vice and even Brietbart manage to do so well, because they can dial in to exact groups or close enough to become darlings in their own circles. CNN, Fox and MSNBC tried to follow this by dialing in their reporting to be inclusive to those same groups, but due to the nature of their reporting cannot match the easy to digest and overly simplified deductive style of the aforementioned sources, plus they seem too large to quickly retune their spin to what those groups want to hear. Because very few people watch or read the news for anything but wanting to see their viewpoint of something proved correct. Or in some cases, to have a bit of righteous anger at the obvious bias in someone else's news source.

Social media has made it much easier to propagate these things in record times without having to do a bit of fact checking and with almost zero accountability when they're outright slanderous to the opposing view. But the thing is, it's much the same as it's always been, it's just the line between left and right is much less geographical than it used to be, what would once have been a highly conservative medium sized town in Texas now has a very vocal but no larger liberal group shitting up the facebook feeds of others and drawing in people with no real knowledge to their side, and conservatives doing the same ion larger areas to people sick of dealing with zero change while always electing left of center folks to city council and police chief. So all thats honestly changed is the political minorities in these areas are just not shutting the fuck up and think there's some secret plot to keep their views silenced. Same shit that's happened with groups like the furries, trannies and other fringe groups with way too massive online presences
 
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TiggerNits said:
Social media has made it much easier to propagate these things in record times without having to do a bit of fact checking and with almost zero accountability when they're outright slanderous to the opposing view. But the thing is, it's much the same as it's always been, it's just the line between left and right is much less geographical than it used to be, what would once have been a highly conservative medium sized town in Texas now has a very vocal but no larger liberal group shitting up the facebook feeds of others and drawing in people with no real knowledge to their side, and conservatives doing the same ion larger areas to people sick of dealing with zero change while always electing left of center folks to city council and police chief. So all thats honestly changed is the political minorities in these areas are just not shutting the fuck up and think there's some secret plot to keep their views silenced. Same shit that's happened with groups like the furries, trannies and other fringe groups with way too massive online presences
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Wow why the fuck are you saying all furries and trannies are invalid?
 
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I think things are more sensationalized and are more biased now.

News is significantly more based around spin. Think back to the year 2004 or or something, would anyone say they distrusted news sources like CNN and the BBC? Nowadays you can't find anyone under 40 who trusts a major news network.

To put it into perspective sites like InfoWars and Breitbart are now taken much more seriously than they ever have been. Everything is portrayed to people almost like it's a war and a battleground when in reality it's mostly people bickering about things that in the grand scheme of things are largely pointless. And will probably be parodied endlessly in the 2020s and 2030s once PC culture starts being seen as outdated by young people.
 
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Just picture that you happened to be born in the early 1900s in Germany and
world War I breaks out, if your lucky you don't fight if your unlucky and survive you loose most your friends. Peace finally comes and a Spanish flu epidemic breaks out and kills around 100 million people in the world.

Wow you survive all that, oh after you lose all your money in the stock crash.
Well hopefully your later years will be peace ful. I'm sure this young Hitler chap has potential....

Just an example of how not a shit show this world currently is. We take alot for granted.
 
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