Ask HN: Why Is Everything Declining?

[maerF0x0]

Is anyone else noticing that for several 5 year blocks (pentad) the world just seems to get markedly worse? It's like no body seems to give a shit about anyone except themselves anymore. Whats the cause of this? What's the solution?

A bunch of things I've noticed:

* Landlords seem extremely greedy and do terrible rent seeking tactics like fees upon fees (250 admin fee to rent here, $75 to apply, $300 non refundable pet deposit, $25 a month pet rent, $12.50 community fee, $15 trash valet, $5 online payment fee, $100 a month community internet (for the $50 a month package), going Month to month after a lease ends is 2x the annual price. And then they use RealPage to collude to make prices higher[1]

* People are noisy as fuck and dont seem to give a shit. Seems like every night there's someone with loud as exhaust on "sportish" car ripping around the neihborhood. For months this guy would start up his loud car at 7am and no one care when I complained.

* General worker apathy is endemic everywhere I go people seem aggravated I would dare to check my order and point out they didn't put in the ketchup i asked for, or the napkins, or whatever. Or when I dine in the tables are dirty. Or the gym is filthy, the cleaner just drags the mop around looking busy but accomplishing nothing. But in many instances they keep asking for more tips.

* Software seems to be overrun by a mentality that any future cost is worth it to save even 1 minute of development time today. And this one I think I've observed the root, it seems that people get promoted away from their problems so they're not the ones to solve them. And those who do write good software (albeit slightly slower) are not promotable beacuse they're "under performing" their peers. Why does it seem management (and many thusly incentivized engineers) have abandoned decades of experience showing how to create reliable, robust, reusable code that is both great the customer, fast to iterate on, and only a tiny tiny bit slower to write.

* Seems like everything is subscription model and you have to pay N times to access something thats only worth 1-3x . Eg: I Netflix for a couple hours a month. At the price for 4k access I can almost go out to a theatre. Video games are all trending to subscription models. I just learned the other day that the PS4 games I got with my subcription to PSN all are locked because I stopped subscribing (nearly 50 games) . So I paid them like $125 for access to these games for 24 months, and now I cannot play any of them? At least I still own NES/SNES/N64 Game cartridges that will never lock me out.

* Police seem to not give a shit anymore. I've noticed what seems to be total lawlessness going on in my world. Folks stealing shit. People driving absurdly dangerously in cars that are not designed to travel like that. (tailgating, lane switch, accelerating at the fastest I've ever seen a beat up Sentra do...) . I never see cops hit lights and sirens at them. And every year our taxes (their paycheck) and our insurance goes up (a consequence of poor driving habits). And at the same time, we get these cases where a dude like Tyre, at least as I see the body cam, seems to be basically complying and the police freak out on him, he basically complies, and they taze and pepper spay him, no wonder he ran away -- what is someone supposed to think when they say "on the ground" and you get on the ground and then just keep getting more and more aggressive. Like are you gonna just lay on your face while they potentially pull their gun and just shoot you in the back of the head? How do you know what's going on unless you can face and see them? How can you trust they wont, cause even if it's 99.999999% they wont, you only get 1 one chance and if you get it wrong you're dead without any coming back.

* Over and over again we keep hearing stories of fake people becoming the top paid, respected, or otherwise status people in society. Elizabeth Holmes, Frank/JP Morgan scam for $175M[2], fraudulent crypto schemes

* And there's a ton of little things too like the water is poison, the air is poison, the food system is poison or crashing etc.

I'm aware of pinker's general argument that many numbers are getting better. But it seems like people just treat eachother like shit these days.

Anyone else have other examples? I am I way off base here?

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/26/23479034/doj-investigating-rent-setting-software-company-realpage

[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/business/jpmorgan-chase-charlie-javice-fraud.html

[noud]

I think you're way off base. It's called rosy retrospection, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosy_retrospection. As you already mentioned in your comments, you're judging the past disproportionately more positive that the present.

If you really want to know if everything is declining, try measure it everyday for the next five years. For example, every day, rate your personal well being, track how (un)happy you are with the current software, how much you pay to your landlords and subscriptions, how many mistakes the police makes, the weather, everything, ... After 5 years you'll have a good idea if things actually got worse than they are now. Sure, some things will get worse, but definitely not everything, and some things will even be better than they are now.

[zeroonetwothree]

I don't know your age but I'm going to guess 30+. This is just happens when you get old. When you were younger you probably noticed that all the older people you knew pined for some earlier time (say the 1970s or 1950s). And you probably thought they were being silly. Well, now you've become one of those people.

The fact is the world always seems better when you are younger, not because the world necessarily better, but because it's just more pleasant to be young. The future is full of promise, you haven't made any huge mistakes yet, and your body hasn't started the inexorable march towards decay and death.

Most of your points are subjective, reflecting people's mentality or thoughts. I can't really argue against this because it's your own perception. But I would say you should be a bit skeptical that people's behavior can really change that much over such a short period. It's much more likely that you interpret it differently than you use to. Scams have been prevalent throughout human history. Perhaps you are just paying more attention to the news lately?

Some of the things you bring up are valid objective things. For example it's true that many more things are subscription based now. But on the other hands, those are things that weren't even available before. You can still buy and play all the same non-subscription games that used to exist (I still play HOMM3 for example). If you prefer cable TV that still exists as well. So I find it misleading to argue that because we have more choice that it's somehow worse when the previous options haven't been taken away.

[PessimalDecimal]

> People are noisy as fuck and dont seem to give a shit. Seems like every night there's someone with loud as exhaust on "sportish" car ripping around the neihborhood. For months this guy would start up his loud car at 7am and no one care when I complained.

> Police seem to not give a shit anymore. I've noticed what seems to be total lawlessness going on in my world. Folks stealing shit. People driving absurdly dangerously in cars that are not designed to travel like that. (tailgating, lane switch, accelerating at the fastest I've ever seen a beat up Sentra do...) . I never see cops hit lights and sirens at them.

Both of these resonate with me. I perceive it as a general decline in the willingness to enforce any sort of standards of behavior by any means (social shaming or formal enforcement by law). Antisocial behavior like drag racing, speeding through neighborhoods, arguing and even fighting on airplanes, being a grown-ass adult in pajamas out in public, etc. You're likelier to get resistance for trying to enforce any sort of basic decency than to flout old (but not that old...) standards.

[Zircom]

>being a grown-ass adult in pajamas out in public

I'm with you about all the other things but people wearing whatever clothes they want to affects you in literally no way shape or form.

[badpun]

I wonder how much popular culture has to do with it. For example, when you sincerely listen to rap lyrics, a lot of it (and from the biggest names too) sound like a deranged, narcissistic, and sometimes violent, rants. When people hear that around them from the youngest age, they get the understandsting that such outlook on life is within the accepted norms (or, more likely, the music tells them to don't care about any norms at all, because it's all about the benjamins or whatever), especially when they don't have parents or other authority figures to correct them. Smart people from decent backgrounds can see through this filth or even use it as harmless entertainment - but, for other people, it can instill antisocial behaviour.

[Tool_of_Society]

None of this is new. I can tell you stories of similar experiences going back into my childhood in the early 80s. I know people who can tell you airline stories from the 60s that are similar.

[jimbob45]

https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/local/2022/06/30...

Salem, OR straight up won’t respond to any noise complaints anymore, citing low officer count. Seems like the negative effects from the 2020 BLM riots are starting to show.

[matwood]

> Antisocial behavior like drag racing, speeding through neighborhoods

Fast and Furious came out in 2001. A pop movie about a topic means it had been going on for a long time. Driving fast and drag racing has been thing forever.

And loud cars...look up whistler tips on YouTube from the early 00s.

[scoofy]

I mean I think the existence of new tech makes it harder to enforce. In the 80's there was an issue with noise on the subway when boomboxes became popular, but they were heavy and expensive to operate. With smartphones and bluetooth speakers, literally anyone on the subway can annoy the rest of the train car with minimal effort. In fact, it takes a bit more effort now (remember headphones, or mute phone), to actually be accommodating to your fellow travelers.

I honestly subscribe to the maxim that humanity doesn't really change, it's our ability to view and be affected by humanity that that increases over time. This works in both directions. It's much easier for someone to annoy me on the train, but it's also much easier for me to learn full-stack development on youtube.

[yamtaddle]

Ask HN OP:

The harsh and indignant backlash to "things would be nicer if people gave half a fuck how they look in public" is probably the best answer to your question that you're gonna get.

[deweyusa]

I agree whole-heatedly. Every dumb kid thinks he has to be noisier than the next, whether it's a shitty dropped Honda civic covered in primer, a dumbshit F-350 with dumb tires sticking out past the body, or a motorcycle with some ignoramus on it wearing a bandana with a skull over his face, like that makes him tough. It's like everyone has to flex because they think it makes them cool, but really the rest of us are saying "oh look, another dumbass". Yet, you're right, the cops don't seem to care. I don't get it. It's like even they think they have something better to do, and noise complaints are too beneath them to care. I've talked to a number of cops about this, and they have told me they won't enforce these laws unless they are looking for an excuse to pull someone over for something more significant (to them).

[Jochim]

I don't agree that these behaviours are down to a lack of social enforcement. The root issue is that the societal incentives that encourage adherence to social norms have been fundamentally weakened by neo-liberalism and the economic consequences.

I don't think it's controversial to suggest that comfortable, healthy, well fed, and financially secure people are less likely to engage in antisocial behaviour. Those doing so are typically people who do not view themselves as belonging to (or benefiting from) society.

Frankly, what goal is achieved in meting out punishment on someone already disillusioned with society? The likely result is exactly what plays out in many prison systems today. A cycle of increasing disillusionment, societal expense, and escalatory retaliation.

Is it any surprise that anti-social behaviour is increasing? Advertising exists largely to convince people of the inadequacy of their current situation, be it financial, physical, or mental. What other effect could be expected in the context of growing social inequality?

In an era of general prosperity households have gone from working a combined 40 hours per week to 80, leaving much less time for personal affairs and increased stress.

Many "low skilled" jobs are simply gone, the replacements generally offering much lower pay and poorer working conditions. Consider the wider ramifications in towns where these jobs made up a significant proportion of the work.

Housing grows increasingly out of the reach of the younger generation despite paying an ever greater percentage of their monthly wage to landlords.

[travisgriggs]

Pajama pants are just decorative scrubs. Medical people go out in those all the time. You’re welcome to wear your denim scrubs as well.

[Papirola]

"normalize $X !!"

$X being antisocial or otherwise reprehensible behaviour.

[alphazard]

As others have pointed out: this is the society becoming more liberal. The great triumph of liberalism has been removing the government's influence on social norms, and how we engage non-violently with one another in general.

Where the modern Left has gone off the rails is insisting that we also cannot reinforce good behavior and shame bad behavior, mostly the latter, through non-violent social interactions.

It's great that the government can't prevent adults from wearing pajamas in public, but you'd also be right to make value judgements about the kind of adult who does that.

[bufferoverflow]

Both of them are the result of the policies that you voted for. Maybe not you personally, but the people in your state.

[ShamelessC]

There's zero need to be judgemental about people's choice of clothing. Also, I don't think you understand what antisocial typically means, And there's no need to be judgemental about that either.

This is actually part of the problem - making shallow jabs on the internet to feel superior is avoidant compared to an actual confrontation; where you have no choice but to reflect on how your views may not apply to all situations.

[lucb1e]

And this is where in the world? It sounds likely regional but you're not mentioning a region.

[vladimirralev]

The economy is just increasingly fake or rewarding foolish scummy behaviour instead of honest cooperative work. People coasted for 10+ years now on "passive income" from printed money along with almost no enforcement action against scams. That gave rise to a chain reaction of people trying to scam each other in a general revenge.

Take for example a big slice of the economy - real estate. Honest real estate agents who try to match real needs to real properties were totally displaced (or outcompeted) by agents who spam fake ads in order to secure an exclusive contract with unfair terms and sell you the biggest property you can afford with no regard of your actual needs. The Fed in turn backstops any losses and buys toxic mortgages perpetuating the scheme.

Further, imagine an economy entirely comprised of real estate agents (or even NFT traders). In such economy, there is only so much real need for agents, at some point there will be more agents than the market really needs. At that point the only way to survive in the market is to become adversarial, it is in your best interest to outspend everybody on deceptive marketing, then mismatch buyers and sellers so that they will have to come back to you looking for new deals once they realise they were mismatched. And again the only reason people can keep this mismatched economy going is because the Fed/congress flood the system with money and their mistakes are rewarded (in asset price inflation at least).

This is the economy we have now more or less in the different sectors. And policy makers can't touch anything because they prioritise stability and growth.

[hezralig]

I commented elsewhere but I studied Econ in college because it was a particular interest of mine. I hated it. I also wanted to understand it, so that I could know why it rubbed me the wrong way and live intentionally to push against it.

There was this moment when I was in a grad course and the professor was talking about self-optimizing markets. That's when it hit me. I literally stood up in the class, interrupted everything and went like "wait, the math isn't optimizing for income inequality". It was kind of funny watching more than 100 little economists in training suddenly start tearing apart the equation at once. You could literally hear the sound of frantic spreadsheeting and charting.

In the end, the professor himself said that it was true, you could achieve a fully "optimized" economy with literally everything being owned by a handful of people. Made me think.

How is a system supposed to be beneficial for us all when the mathematics at its core don't actually consider societal benefit?

If an economy is fully "optimized" but everyone is sick, sad, and angry - is it actually optimal?

A mathematical model can make sense without being sensible. This is why I have an implicit distrust of algorithms and other systems of optimization.

[operatingthetan]

>Honest real estate agents who try to match real needs to real properties were totally displaced (or outcompeted) by agents who spam fake ads in order to secure an exclusive contract with unfair terms and sell you the biggest property you can afford with no regard of your actual needs. The Fed in turn backstops any losses and buys toxic mortgages perpetuating the scheme.

There's lot's to criticize about real eastate agents but this ain't it. Try taking huge commissions for a disproportionate amount of work from the value of the house for one.

[robocat]

> real estate

The financial incentives to an agent are to sell as many houses as they can as quickly as possible. Every sale is an end to ongoing time being "wasted" dealing with potential buyers. Every deal is money in the bank now. Agents don't really care about the price beyond talking the seller and the buyer to agree to some number (overpriced or underpriced is mostly irrelevant).

The US system appears batshit crazy to me - very adversarial? In New Zealand there is usually only a sellers agent: it is rare to have a buyers agent. Buying a house in New Zealand has less percentage cost in total fees, from what I can tell. Total agent fees are commonly around 4% for the first $400k of the sale price (median house price $800k in NZ) and around 2% for the remainder. We have real estate companies advertising lower rates. Plus maybe 1% for marketing? https://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/what-does-it-cost/YO4VZM...

[ryan93]

real estate agents aren't responsible for people overspending. come on

[Tiktaalik]

A lot of this is related to inequality, value of labour detaching from wealth, and the increasing unaffordability of life.

The material conditions of regular people are continuously getting worse as more and more of their income is stripped away by rent seeking oligopolies, mainly increasing housing costs but depending on your jurisdiction all sorts of other costs (eg. cable and mobile phone costs an issue in some places, healthcare in other places).

In the worst extremes people are simply running out of money and the amount of people at risk of homelessness and in homelessness is spiking, and people in such dire conditions are dying at a remarkable rate given the toxic drug crisis.

For the political class, not a problem here, as they are part of the rent seeking class, and they can expect a nice directorship gig at some oligopoly corporation after their term.

The big fix for much of this is fundamentally to put more money in the wallets of regular people. This means increasing rental vacancy, limiting rent increases, and bringing rents down to 30% of people's income (or less!). It means livable incomes and government stepping in to create a social safety net to ensure that those incomes aren't flowing away immediately to pay for the basics of staying healthy.

It means breaking up corporations and reigning them in and stopping rent seeking.

All of this harms the very wealthy and even the upper middle class, who themselves are often small time landlords that benefit from low rents and renter misery, so these politically active groups block all change.

[tejohnso]

> Anyone else have other examples?

Elected president who is so crass and generally offensive he wouldn't have gotten close to being elected 50 years ago.

Elected president who is showing clear signs of age related cognitive decline (so they say) but continues to occupy the office.

Elected presidents with criminal behaviour that is far worse than what previous presidents were impeached or resigned for.

Mental illness, drug abuse, homelessness appears to be worsening in many cities while we're seeing record setting net worth individuals and corporations.

Environmental catastrophe lurking just around the corner, scientists pleading for action to the point of civil disobedience, same international apathy from governments.

Increased government surveillance and control, military equipment flowing into police forces, laws passed to allow government kidnapping of citizens without formal charges.

[maerF0x0]

Yeah the stock trading in congress is another one for your list. I sometimes feel like America is the most corrupt country I've ever encountered. it's not overt like "Pay me $50 and you can avoid a ticket" but it's pernicious and wide spread.

- Law makers trade on what they're going to vote prior to voting it

- charging people a different price for the exact same procedure, at the same location, under the same market conditions simply for the reason of their income/insurance/whims

- nepotism and politicking in executive class (boards, Csuite etc), their lobbyists, and the ruling class ("elected" officials) etc. as an example Stock Buy backs are being decided by these groups and benefiting those groups' stock based income despite the duty to maximize shareholder value.

[Tiktaalik]

A European nation casually invading another European nation, something we thought was now unthinkable not too long ago.

[snowwrestler]

Maybe what is declining is a knowledge of history? Like, compare Andrew Jackson to Trump, or Reagan or FDR to Biden; it’s no contest. Public mental illness, drug abuse, homelessness were all worse during the 1980s and that’s just in my lifetime. Go farther back in U.S. history and there were entire cities of homeless, destitute, starving, and sick people. The idea that “homelessness” is even a problem that society should collectively address is barely 100 years old. Prior to that people died in the streets all the time and the only public funding was to pick up the bodies and bury them.

[mFixman]

Yeah the mid-'80s sucked in the US, but do you have any modern examples of decline? :-)

[laidoffamazon]

> Elected president who is showing clear signs of age related cognitive decline (so they say) but continues to occupy the office.

Donald Trump is many things, but I really don't think he's seeing more cognitive decline than an average 76 year old.

[maxboone]

Reagan, Nixon?

[fuball63]

I'll preface this by saying this is all anecdotal evidence based on my personal observations, so it may not apply to everyone.

I often feel the same way, especially with tech. For those of us that remember before the internet was ubiquitous, the optimism and promise of the "information super highway" seems in stark contrast with what we see today. I try to keep in mind a few things:

First, we are living in a time that will be regarded as one of the most consequential in history. We're only ~20 years of nearly every person in the planet having access to all human information, instantly. Think of what people will say about this time period in 200 years. We are currently feeling the effects of growing pains.

Second, everything that embodies that early optimism is still there, its just harder to find. Which is related to my next point:

We are seeing diminishing returns in the benefits of constant consumption of media, energy, food, etc. There is so much choice out there, and the margins are so thin, that you need to consume more to be "satisfied". I often reflect on how many more full TV series we have all seen compared to a few generations ago. Or how much text we all read daily in the form of news, tweets, and forums, compared to the daily paper. Are we better for it? I think a lot of people don't feel better.

So that leads to the optimistic conclusions of this post. Generally speaking, we have more choice than ever before in history, across the board. But we have the burden of the responsibility of moderation and curation.

I find that when I feel this way, I try to shift my "consumption" mental state to "construction". We live in an amazing time to make things and distribute them. And because there's so much noise to compete with, you have to do it friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor. Its a glimpse of how the best parts of the "new world" can provide the best parts of the "old world".

[WXLCKNO]

What interests me most about the current zeitgeist is that there is an generalized, or at least spreading, feeling of emptiness.

What replaces religion to fill this gap for a new generation who is not religious? (including myself)

Something very clear, a philosophy of life of some kind that people can adopt to feel like they are part of something bigger, without that something being a fictional being. And without devolving into a cult either.

And obviously I'm generalizing for my north american well-off white man point of view but I feel like living a balanced life, working out, having a good job, having good friends and family etc is all great but it feels like all of that is focused around ourselves.

There is no common thread and it just feels like we see obvious greed every day, perpetuated by massive corporations and protected by corrupt politicians, and there is seemingly no change.

Some other comments about the world becoming more adversial ring true to me.

It feels like we are approaching an unknown cultural revolution of some kind, with a general unease growing and no one being able to put the finger on it exactly and communicate it effectively.

Obviously my own perception comes into play here and on days where I'm happier I don't think much about it.

But generally there is a feeling that we are hurtling towards catastrophe and everyone is trying to profit before it's too late.

There is a mental barrier of irreversible climate change where I cannot imagine the year 2100 being anything other than dystopian.

[spaceman_2020]

I really believe that this is what happens when you go so long without a substantial recession coupled with an easy money regime.

There's apathy because no one has been scared in a long time. Landlords haven't been scared of not finding renters and not being able to pay their mortgages. Workers haven't been really scared of not finding jobs. Businesses have not really been scared of not being able to raise money.

Awful behavior in general comes from an absence of fear. Recessions were the natural force that brought fear and its ensuing product, sanity, to markets. Remove that and you get our current state of things.

[gallopingcomp]

> Awful behavior in general comes from an absence of fear

I assume you meant _specific_ fears about the consequences of one's _specific_ actions (e.g. fear of harming someone else, or fear of receiving backlash for it; or fear of squandering scarce funds for a business).

Fear does not unconditionally bring sanity. I've found widespread, chronic, low-grade background fear to be an equally significant driver of awful behavior (and irrationality), often (but not always) co-occurring with an absence of specific consequences.

(The implication being that trying to "solve" this problem with more general terror, as opposed to specific consequences, would likely backfire.)

[ricardobayes]

Sure, but it also sounds like OP stopped being grateful. You know, for the little things, like having plentiful food to eat, a roof above your head, being warm in winter, etc. If you read this tirade to 99% of the world population they will laugh in your face. Complaining about not getting enough ketchup with your takeaway, a rental application fee or being tailgated is being privileged.

[tharne]

> when you go so long without a substantial recession

2008 was 15 years ago. It caused a lot of pain and human misery, just not among the social classes that typically comment on hacker news.

[throwaway1a1]

and also innovation and respect for honest hardworking people

[dahart]

> I’m aware of pinker’s general argument that many numbers are getting better.

I reject the entire premise on the grounds that a list of supposedly bad things without any attempt to compare it to something proves absolutely nothing, no matter how large the list is. If you’re aware of Pinker’s argument, why are you ignoring it? Why not explore it, follow up on the stats and see if he’s right?

It does seem like a lot of people are wallowing in bad news and convincing themselves to be hopeless, several threads have gone by HN recently along those lines, and I can think of friends and family members that are stuck on this too. I have no idea if it’s gotten worse, but seems plausible the pandemic and lower rates of in-person social activity combined with some bumpy politics recently combined with social media and news cycles that successfully engage people in outrage 24-7, seems like all those things may very well increase the perception that things are worse, regardless of the reality.

> Anyone else have other example?

This is explicitly seeking confirmation bias. Why not instead solicit counter-examples? Good news is occurring all the time, and for whatever reason it gets lets attention online and in the media. I highly recommend consciously seeking out good news in your life, it may answer your question.

[csense]

30-50 years ago, with a single salary you could support a house with a yard, a non-working spouse, multiple kids, and a car. Our society knew how to make that happen once, and we've forgotten.

We've had incredible advances in technology and productivity since then, so why can't we have that kind of economic environment now? What's gumming up the works?

[curiousllama]

Everything isn’t declining. Things were never great, by any modern definition. We just have an expectation that things are supposed to be easy breezy nowadays, and it turns out people are still people.

Like, are you telling me that NYC landlords in the 90s weren’t trying to scam their tenants? That Philly police in the 80s were clean, efficient, trustworthy public servants? That there was less fraud in the .com boom, or before the Great Recession, then now with AI-SaaSchain nonsense?

I used to go to a burger place where the cashier would just tell me to fuck off if I ordered too slow. I can’t imagine trying to tell that dude he forgot _napkins_ in my bag.

I totally get the urge to rant too. People suck. But don’t lose hope! Because people always sucked, and it’s nothing new.

[beefman]

The energy gradient which powers civilization is decaying.

Civilization must conifgure itself around a new, steeper gradient. Only catch: it must use the old gradient to power this transformation.

https://gist.github.com/clumma/214831723c7d567cc343cc0767273...

[victorNicollet]

As for the declining quality of products and services, we are leaving a decade where start-ups were burning VC money to provide a service that was both superior and cheaper, in order to starve their competitors. Now that the competitors are dead, prices/monetization will increase and quality will drop in many areas.

This will hit twice as hard if you were an early adopter, because you also stop being the target audience for most of these products.

And on a smaller scale (restaurants, corner shops, small businesses), the default state of being for most companies has always been to slowly decay over long periods of time. The brand new business that earned your loyalty a decade ago may be worse today, but there's certainly another new business today that you can be impressed with. You just need to find it.

[nerdchum]

Little things I've noticed decay in my 40 plus years.

I noticed credit card machines fail a lot more. Like 5 or 10 years ago credit card machines very rarely failed. Like you didn't even think about it. Now it's like a 25% chance the credit card machine I'm using will not work properly. This is not a new technology.

No one lets you in in traffic anymore. you used to be able to put your blinker on and people would wave you in. Now people are actively hostile and try to stop you from getting over.

There's a lot more scammy activity. Things like if you forget your tracking number or if you don't get documentation then that transaction will be gone.

Customer service has gotten terrible. You used to be able to call up and relatively quickly speak with someone knowledgeable and competent in many support phone lines but now it's a mostly hopeless endeavor that you wait online for an extremely long time to speak with the super friendly but clueless incompetent person.

[jmoak3]

I think we're on the verge/in the middle of a stagnating/shrinking pie. When we're not growing in population and wealth things get dark as people chase zero-sum short term gains at the expense of others.

Distrust runs rampant, people turn to the extraction of their peers vs expansion with their new friends.

It will get better.

Edit:

Think bigger than the extractors!

[keiferski]

This is pretty much just the inevitable consequence of a market-based, individualist society that is obsessed with removing any standards or expectations on behavior, cultural output, language use, dress, or anything else. Unfortunately, I don't expect things to improve until people start caring about their local communities (i.e. the other people around them) and "Society" in general in a concrete, actionable way, and not just an ideological, tribalist, abstract way.

[swatcoder]

People notice and express this pattern every year for all of recorded history. People also express the opposite, seemingly as often and seemingly as perpetually.

It might just be subjective. There are countless things to see in the world and you can make a list of examples affirming whatever you want to (or dread to) believe.

[rlawson]

54 years old so here is the mixed bag I have seen in my area (South)

  1. Absolutely there is a decline in quality/cleanliness and low to mid restaurants in my area. I don't even bother checking my order and assume it will be wrong. Many places we go into look like a disaster so my family has just quit eating out. I was at a Red Lobster and two employees got in a scream fight because all the cooks just walked off the job. The manager eventually walked out and shooed everyone that did not have food out the door. I don't know the root cause but the degradation happened post Covid.

  2. People do seem less considerate of others. I have decided to not coach youth soccer anymore due to crazy parents. We had a street fight in my middle class neighborhood. Many other examples - maybe it's my local area but I have lived here most of my life.

  3. I am a middle aged white guy and even I am scared of the police. Scared mainly because they seem so scared and on edge.

  4. The "business" people have taken over IT. I do feel bad for the next generation. We are wealth generators for people that hate to be dependent on us.  

  5. On the plus side, society seems much more tolerant of minorities (race/sexual orientation/religion/etc)

[rossdavidh]

I'm not saying that I agree with all of your points (the air and water were far worse in the mid-20th century in many areas, for example), but let's take it as given and advance an hypothesis: decreasing time horizon. The ever-increasing (because self-feeding) pace of technological change, means that there is less and less predictability about the situation in the future, so timescales over which people plan are shortened. This is most obvious in the example of software being made for a very short time horizon, with the idea that it will be regardless obsolete in a short time, and anyway faster and faster hardware will overcome software bloat. Whether correct or not, a shorter and shorter timescale in planning is probably inevitable if things change faster and faster, which they are.

Just an hypothesis.