If they want to get with the program they'll have to do something about a giant portion of the population being horrible people. I don't know what to say about solutions regarding that but then again I go as far as pretending not to speak English when I encounter people from there while abroad so I don't have to have any bullshit. If I can sus them out as being alright (No utterance of bigotry as I hear them talk in English is a big one, basic international etiquette like not interrupting people on an automatic basis over everyone else in the room is too), I might be OK with them but otherwise it's just way, way more trouble than it's worth to bother too hard on that when there's a giant world of people who don't act like that.
> a giant portion of the population being horrible people
If everyone you meet is a jerk, maybe it's time to look in the mirror.
I'd like to add something - a quote amusingly often misattributed to Sigmund Freud or William Gibson, although probably just from someone on Twitter [1] - "Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes."
I was also a kid in the 70s and while it did seem pretty gloomy then, I think people are gloomier about the future now.
> And even the re-emergence of some of the worst people (let's just aggregate them into "the racist shitheads")
In the 70s there were racist shitheads, but they were pretty afraid to come out into the sunlight. Now they're just out in the open. I think I liked it better when they felt like they had to hide.
The other thing about the 70s compared to now: it felt like pretty much everyone was on the same page back then. There wasn't right-wing news and left-wing news, there was just news.
Just out of curiosity, who are we talking about here? And are we sure it's not just because of more coverage? Lots of racist stuff that would have gone completely unnoticed in the 70s now makes national news.
The last thing I can think of like that was Charlottesville 2017. That went pretty badly for the racists and AFAIK they failed to stage any meaningful follow-up.
Some white supremacists tried to join an anti-abortion demonstration earlier this year and they got booed out.
I'm sure many of the marchers happened to be racist but I'm not sure that can be characterized as the main point or driver of why they were there.
You can definitely make the case that a lot of Trump supporters are driven by reactionary racial attitudes, but it's not quite the same as open racial intimidation with white robes and burning crosses.
Perhaps in part due to the revocation of the FCC fairness doctrine [0] in 1987. I wasn't old enough to understand what news broadcasting was like _before_ this, and there are some criticisms of the doctrine, but what we have now _feels_ so much worse.
[0] Here's one from '79: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvX25IG4tvY
Separately from that, you can't post this sort of flamewar comment to HN. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. We ban accounts that post like this, so please don't.
I think there are a lot of good things happening. There's finally progress on climate repair (tiny, but nonzero) which means we may have more time to fix things.
The last 40 years of entrenched bullshit is finally tottering due to its geriatric constituency, so I think there's a good chance for positive change on the horizon. And even the re-emergence of some of the worst people (let's just aggregate them into "the racist shitheads") I see as a positive sign: they were always around, but in the background. Now they have emerged because it's clear they are on the wrong side of history and they know that if they do nothing they will be greatly diminished.
There's no gleaming path to the future like you used to see in glossy utopian pictures in the 1970s. It will be bumpy. But overall I think the derivative is positive.
I'm not sure the USA will get its shit together, but it's only about 4% of the world's population.