Bowling Alone reads like a nostalgic look at the good ol days – The Spectator World

Cable news is dead. Cable broadcasts get fewer viewers than many YouTube streamers. Trump will probably be our next president, again. Now we are fat and lazy and also outraged and misinformed and distracted. Our attention spans are shredded by the multiple devices and social media constantly capturing our attention.

I ve written about my generation s apathy before but what struck me reading this book is that everything is so much worse than my generation s greatest pessimists predicted. We had it so good, and we were so whatever about it.

Who could have imagined nurses dancing on social media when we were all locked up for a pandemic? Who could have foreseen the Tide Pod challenge? The trans contagion among teens? Foreign adversaries can conduct psyops en masse in broad daylight. Certain kids who have spent too much time on TikTok believe that there was no way Helen Keller could have been blind since she could read and write books. Globalists daily attempt to convince us plebs to eat bugs and seem to be succeeding. Women sell not only their bodies, but jarred farts and armpit hair.

Although there was one man who was a pessimist of my time and knew a thing or two about spending time alone who did see this all coming: Uncle Ted, as some Gen Z kids who have discovered Ted Kaczynski s manifesto lovingly refer to him online. Yes, in another strange twist not even Uncle Ted could have predicted, he has legions of online fans who only wish he hadn t bombed people because it takes away from the power of his prescient writing about exactly where our technology would lead us.

We didn t know it at the time, but we were living in the good ol days. And you are too. The companies founded today will be ruining your tomorrow. Happy New Year!

via thespectator.com

Way too depressing. Probably shouldn’t have posted it.