Our politics have also nationalized. Remember the old aphorism, "all politics is local"? For the latest decade or two, not only is that not true, but its erstwhile validity might be beyond conception for younger generations.

That doesn't get to the root of things, but the fact that our day-to-day cultural contexts have shifted dramatically is a much broader dynamic. I suppose a cheap answer would be TV, then the Internet, and most especially and recently social media. But that also only begs more questions--what underlying dynamics did those things effect.

The answer is in the post: "now all of a sudden people are comparing their situation within a much more diverse context that includes many people far wealthier than themselves."

Social media.

So what could we do about it then? If that’s truly the whole explanation it is an unsolvable problem

Authoritarian regimes can "solve" it, democracies cannot. By definition, the rights enable the antagonist. Individually, one can actively cultivate mental models to compare oneself only to oneself instead of others and similar mechanisms to operate with emotional health and fortitude. At scale though? Hooboy are we screwed. Spend 60 minutes on TikTok, I rest my case.

Never spend any amount of time on TikTok, except to perhaps laugh at people who don’t understand how narrowly they’ve filtered their reality.

Comparing yourself to other people is useful, not bad. Unless you want to live in fantasy land and never find out what the real world is like

Disagree

Social media is not the real world though, it's heavily curated (which by itself is a problem) and then algorithmically designed to induce strong feelings like hate, fear, resentment etc. because that is what increases engagement.

That's not healthy, and it's a huge reason so many young people are so miserable all the time. They have no other frame of reference in the actual real world.

I agree that having no real world experience is bad, and social media can be dangerous

> Unless you want to live in fantasy land and never find out what the real world is like

I enjoy picturing the fantasy land where a functioning adult genuinely holds the perspective you’re advocating for here. Dystopian Sci Fi is sort of my thing

I am a functional adult who believes this genuinely. Probably more functional than you, since we’re comparing :)

That’s your microcosm sweetheart, compare away. For somebody named “Philosopher” you still seem like you could do well reading The Fountainhead or Meditations. But then again your profile says “stirring the pot” so it’s hard to take anything you say in earnest (:

Look at popular culture in America, not to blame it for the current state of things, but as a mirror into the values of society. In a show as benign a Modern Family every home is easily a multi-million dollar home anywhere in the country. This is the 1% reflected as a normal, average, "modern family."

Even if you are doing really well in America it often doesn't feel like it. It often feels like you need to stretch to live a "normal" life. It often feels like you are barely making it and not only are you barely making it but you are one lost job from losing it all.

This isn't exactly new, and it isn't even exclusive to the United States, but I can't help but feel it is only getting worse.