Online or offline. News keeps reporting about loneliness and disconnection, but in my experience it’s just that it’s harder to interact with people in a civil way because they are so hostile, angry, and arrogantly convinced their viewpoints and experiences are the only legitimate ones.
Not to mention the lack of civility towards servers and other service workers. I can’t recall if I was just indifferent 10 years ago, but on a almost daily basis it blows my mind how openly rude many people are to servers and such, which seemed like a much more rare thing when I was younger.
I think hostility has been weaponized. We’ve been divided and conquered.
Yup. Far too many people refuse to admit that they’ve fallen prey to an intentional campaign of foreign agitprop. On the right, it’s understandable because a lot of those people are legitimately fucking stupid, but a ton of people on the left keep getting caught in the same basic playbook over and over again, even though they should know better.