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Comment by scottLobster

Not to get too off topic, but as a 35 year old engineer it seems the world in general has far fewer consequences than I was raised to expect. Everything from businesses with bullshit ideas flourishing at a loss, to January 6 even being possible (politics aside I expected the Capitol Police to crack a lot more skulls than they did once people started smashing windows), to the whole FTX situation and the tepid response in the media/government, to petty crime being outright tolerated, to in my own career I've at times burned through enough money badly enough (albeit with good intentions) that I thought I was going to be fired, only to be told in a performance review I was doing a good job (grateful to stay employed but WTF, I would have fired or at least demoted me). Importantly, the motivation for this lack of consequence doesn't seem to stem from a desire for forgiveness or positive reinforcement or any mechanism that might make things better.

It seems like there's a general apathy/nihilism that's growing in society, whereas by contrast my entire education from childhood up I was held to strict standards and reliably punished when I failed to meet them, and this was in US public schools (albeit a highly ranked school district) and a public university. That or I was just raised in a bubble, and the historical examples I referenced growing up and reference to this day are just a case of survivorship bias, and all the bullshit that was alongside them back in the day has simply been forgotten. I'm not sure, but it is disappointing how little people at large seem to give a shit. Maybe it's a side-effect of the obesity epidemic and people just have less energy or something

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