It seems to me that, in the last couple of years, the world has been taking some huge steps back. Not all the problems are new, but some of them have been getting worse or have been made more obvious due to Corona.
There are too many to mention, and it would be boring to expand on all of them, but just to name a few:
- Climate change. Even with the biggest possible help due to Corona, global emissions haven't fallen significantly. The general sentiment I get is that most people are not willing to give up anything from our modern lifestyles in the West, so I get this sinking feeling that we are headed straight for the cliff and, instead of slamming the breaks, we are accelerating. Moreover, it looks like climate change denial is still a thing.
- Inequality
- Growing nationalism & growing anti-EU sentiment. This is especially happening in Europe - see Hungary, Poland, UK, but it's more or less across the board.
- Trump. The upcoming election will be between Trump and Biden. This makes me terribly sad.
- Mass surveillance
- Growing division among generations, countries, ethnicities.
- Conspiracy theories seem to be on the rise
- We are addicted to smartphones, Facebook and Instagram
There are also countries where democracy is going downhill - just look at Turkey, Russia, Hong Kong, Brazil, China. I could even add the USA to this list, things are definitely not getting better.
The year is 2020, and we still have so many countries under oppressive regimes, women as second class citizens, ethnic cleansing and so on.
Why is the world so crazy? Has it always been like this? Is it better now than 10, 20, 50 years ago? Because it seems to me that the future is bleaker than ever.