When did the U.S. become such a shit show?

[Daly]

Japan and their low birth rate. Young Japanese working women have near zero interest in children. Japan has a healthy and wealthy retired population.

Japan is the best example of a homogenous population. Look the same. Polite and law abiding society. That absolutely positively will change. Immigration will happen out of absolute necessity if Japan is to survive. The change will be most profound in Japan.

We have the same issues. We are less polite and disciplined as a society but we have room still on the downside.

There is pressure in Massachusetts to speed up the paperwork for immigrants so they can be hired into the workforce. An office cleaner wage in Massachusetts has doubled in 5 years. Any kind of maintenance staffing is impossible.

Say what you will about post war but sheer boomer numbers was the impetus for the greatest continuous 40-50 years of growth and prosperity this country ever saw.

Indeed simultanously the seeds for decline were sown. Absolutely no argument.

My vote is 2007 if you wanna put a year on it. Coincidentally the same year as the birth of social media and smart phones. A little gas on the economic fire.

I now give you $37t in debt and Trump v Biden. Trump is the product of the populism that resulted from the Wall Street bailout.

You will not hear any politician talk about birth rates or the debt (Most of the posters here either for that matter).

Woke nonsense and what books should be in lol public schools instead.

Tick tock

This is interesting. Nothing happens in a vacuum so there isn't one thing. The more educated you are the less kids you're going to have. Like all the kids when we went from 4 per house to 1.5 when women went into the workplace has caused the deficit. Yet that die was cast for everyone in the workforce now from the start. It's been essential to have two incomes for young couples forever if you don't want to live in the hood and send them to some school where they are going to get killed.

Chicken/egg. I recall a house that struck me as huge when I was a kid, and now when I drive by it it's an average sized house. Families getting smaller while houses got bigger. More girls finish school, yet a lot have jobs where when you deduct day care if they have a kid and the expense of travel and second cars and the loans they took out to attend, work for $10/hr even if they have a decent degree during the years they started larger families 50 years ago.

One car, no Iphone bill, no wifi bill, car insurance on one vehicle, no cable bill, 1300 square foot home with 6 people, etc. That's what the 1950s was largely. We pine for what we think of as nirvana while everyone has this huge monthly nut.

We certainly fucked up. I don't know what was avoidable. Could have certainly delayed it.

Its common to romanticize about the days of yester year and how great it was 40 years ago in much simpler times. All of our advancements get ignored.

Look at video from the late 70s and it might as well be 1920. Compare 1970 to now and its like a diferent civilization.

Can you imagine dropping a fully functional I Phone off in 1975? Some Star Trek level shit.

[Dan Druff]

There's no question that technology and medical advancements have made life easier in some ways.

There's also been some social advances which are positives. Gay people can feel free to be out of the closet, and can get married. Domestic violence is taken more seriously. There's an awareness of sexual predators against children which was mostly ignored and swept under the rug until as late as the early 80s. Sexual harassment is now far less common in the workplace. These are all positives.

Unfortunately, some negative side effects have come along with all of this, making people sometimes wish for yesteryear.

Kids don't play outside anymore. You used to see it all the time, and now they're sitting indoors on their smartphones or gaming consoles. This is despite the fact that gaming systems existed in the '80s and '90s, yet you still saw kids everywhere playing outside.

And what is perhaps related, kids also aren't growing up. They seem to get stuck in perpetual early adolescence. They don't want to drive, yet in the '80s and '90s, every kid ran to get his license on their 16th birthday. They aren't moving out on their own. They aren't independent. The percentage of males 18-30 who didn't have sex in the previous year -- as low as 7% in 1989 -- now exceeds 30%. We have a generation of incels, and it's only getting worse.

What started as a well-meaning message of acceptance of gay people has morphed into the absurd modern gender ideology. This has led to previously unthinkable situations like men competing in women's sports (and an entire political party supporting it), as well as a dangerous epidemic of children "transitioning".

Comedy has been ruined. The attempt to be sensitive toward harmful racist/sexist/homophobic tropes ended up over-sanitizing comedy to where you're not allowed to make fun of anyone anymore, aside from white Christian males. Comedy was always about being offensive, pushing the envelope, and making people feel uncomfortable. That's not allowed anymore. Even Family Guy had a character remark, "We're living in a post-joke world."

There's much more. These are just a few examples.

[Sanlmar]

Its common to romanticize about the days of yester year and how great it was 40 years ago in much simpler times. All of our advancements get ignored.

Look at video from the late 70s and it might as well be 1920. Compare 1970 to now and its like a diferent civilization.

Can you imagine dropping a fully functional I Phone off in 1975? Some Star Trek level shit.

Siri, Gender Affirming Care Centers near me please

[Sanlmar]

I’ll trot out the old stand by

Easier access to porn does not make civilization better or happier Daly.

[country978]

Its been many weeks now since I've smoked weed and you wouldn't believe the change in motivation and habits. I smoked weed in high school and then periodically throughout my life and let me just tell you that the shit being peddled today is far superior to what was being served up in the 80's. Add in the fact that its legal and you get millions of people with a daily habit that zapps them of motivation and focused thought.

This isn't the cause of the shithole but it for sure is not helping.

I can afford to be lazy and unproductive but its not a good idea and shouldn't be done every day. In case anyone is wondering it hasn't helped my poker game for shit.