or perhaps it's because the world is falling apart and we're on a solid trajectory to make it worse, and unlike a war, it's not something easy to bounce back from?
Let's be fair, humanity has been saying that everything is falling apart for centuries.
There's in the front page a post that's named: "A brief history of nobody wants to work anymore"¹ that shows registers from as early as 1894 of media saying "Nobody wants to work anymore".
Even the classic "Kids these days" can be tracked back to 624 BCE².
Socrates said too something along those lines: «The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.»
You are forgetting a very important thing: the ever-increasing power of misplaced technology - once upon a time ability for damage equaled to a rock or a stick, today...
The "great responsibility" that should have accompanied the "great power" is dwarfed. Wisdom should needingly¹ increase more than power - of course this is not how things go.
(¹I cannot find the term for the modality: not "deontically", not "absiologically"... The idea is "X, or you are in trouble".)
So, "in the times of yore, civilization was falling apart". Today, it is with boosted damages.
Well, we've never had microplastics inside literally everything before, and I'm not too thrilled about it, and forever chemicals aren't too flash either. We get a pass for asbestos because the earth made it (thanks for nothing, gaia), and radiation because it goes away, but we've really taken the cake for worst idea with these things.
It’s probably because car headlights and grilles become squintier and angrier every year. People drive too much and everywhere they look is angry car faces.
Is'a "good" idea: it implies a proposal of a model according to which people absorb acritically more and more, subliminally, iow process the input stimula less and less. The poster points an accusing finger against passivity.
People will always find a way to feel pity for themselves, that absolves them of personal responsibility, and maybe attract some sympathy. Depression and sadness as a form of entertainment is very old.
I wouldn't dare deny that many parts of the world are slowly approaching a tipping point, but even if the world was perfect, people will invent their own struggles. Seems like we instinctively crave challenges, and emotional challenges are the low hanging fruit.
