Hard to judge quantitatively - but TBH as fucked up as my childhood was I wouldn't want to grow up in the modern system and working with the zoomer generation I'm not impressed with the outcome.
> if your only goal is to prevent negative outcomes might as well put everyone in a coma and tube feed them - bound to get 0% crime, violence, addiction.
This is fairly absurd jump.
Also, beating kids into obeisance makes them more likely to beat others onto obeisance. Which has no repercussions if against a kid, but has large ones if against adults. And even if not physical, leads to bullies. The more authority they get, the more coercive bullying happen.
But my point was more about comparing generations, I feel like a lot of struggles like having to learn how to control your temper or focus, are wiped away with drugs, and in general society is very good at removing historic hardships you had to overcome. On the flip side a lot of artificial stress and challenges are introduced with modern life (grade chasing since preschool, social media) - I don't feel like this would have felt meaningful to me so I don't envy the current generation of children.
Not that current time is perfect, but statistically it has better results.