alt Hacker NewsLook at the top comments on ANY article on HN.
It's a bunch of people endlessly frustrated they never self actualized, hurling this frustration onto whatever random topic comes about.
Constant whining about anything new or any change in the world...because of course everything was better in the past and anything new is worse.
But things weren't better back then. These people were just happier in the past, because when you're young, the future is a horizon of boundless opportunity.
As you get old you realize that opportunity is over for you. So for the non-self actualized, it leads to shaking your fist at the clouds, telling everyone to get off your lawn, couching those emotions under supposed concern for abstract concepts like "societal moral fabric" instead of admitting you didn't achieve what you hoped for yourself.
The entire mood of the internet over the past 20 years has simply been a reflection of its biggest cohort (millennials) going through life.
Replies
Are you saying that nothing has ever gotten worse or just nothing in the last twenty years?
World Happiness Report finds this:
"In general, most Western industrial countries are now less happy than they were between 2005 and 2010. Fifteen of them have had significant drops, compared to four with significant increases."
"In eight of the ten global regions shown in Figure 2.2 (covering roughly 90% of the world’s population), those in the youngest age group have higher life evaluations now than in 2006–2010, either in absolute terms or relative to those over 25. Youth wellbeing has only fallen in the NANZ countries [United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand] and Western Europe, both absolutely and relative to adults. [Emphasis added]"
https://www.worldhappiness.report/ed/2026/executive-summary-...