back in the day everything was better

@Noflaps

You are from the US, so I'll address your points mainly from that perspective.

Your nostalgia for your childhood is totally normal and OK. I'm not here to ruin that. The world back then had many flaws as I'm sure you'll agree, but there were some aspects that were good. And some of that good was lost. I posit that it can be regained!

So rather than ruining your childhood memories, here's an attempt to explain your observations of what has changed in the past 70 or so years and what I personally think you could do about it to help the children of today experience a similar childhood to yours. Namely one they can one day look back at with nostalgia and one in which they can look into the future with hope and motivation.

You said in #10:

"Back in the day" people weren't thrilled to be outraged.

Assuming you are talking about the early 1950s to 1970s, the media landscape was completely different. And I actually agree with you that in many respects the situation in the US was better back then than it is today:

This was a time prior to the near-complete commercialisation of news we see in the US today. Prior to the 24-hour news cycle driven by for-profit media empires striving to retain attention through escalating use of breaking news, talking heads and rage bait. Imagine this, a time prior to the fear- and hate-mongering of FOX News or OAN.
A time prior to the corporate near-monopolisation of the news as seen today with Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group (both of them own close to 200 television stations and cover more than 40% of all US households each). A time prior to Sinclair's synchronised partisan pieces airing as so called "Must-run segments".
A time when public broadcasters were actually funded (instead of being smeared as "biased" or "state TV"; instead of being defunded like NPR, PBS and all of their local stations, vitally important for rural communities, now are) and could provide high-quality educational television and radio to millions of people (here's Mr. Rogers, one of the most beautiful American souls that ever lived, to explain):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6wSjINly88
A time when the news-media wasn't arbitrarily excluded from the White House press room on ideological grounds (with only sycophants and loyalists allowed to ask questions). When the head of the FCC, a loyalist to the president, didn't try to cancel annoyingly independently thinking television hosts like Jimmy Kimmel by implicitly threatening to revoke broadcast licences. When journalists weren't berated, slandered or even arrested for simply doing their job (of asking questions, holding those in power accountable or reporting on current events). And when (international) journalists weren't shot in the streets with rubber bullets and tear gas for reporting on a peaceful protest in Washington DC so that a president can pose for a photo-op with an upside-down bible in front of a chapel. To summarise, a time when outrage wasn't as weaponised as it is today.

These are all symptoms of democratic backsliding and a perilous restriction of the freedom of the press. The US got there, in part, through relentless commercialisation of its entire news media. More public broadcasting could actually alleviate some of these problems, if well funded. Private news agencies are inherently incentivised to sensationalise, to fuel outrage and to weaponise emotions in order to retain the viewer's attention and thus advertisement revenues. Public broadcasters do not have this incentive.

I believe one of your nation's greatest, broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow known for his investigative newsmagazine 'See It Now', recognised something like this early on.

On October 15, 1958, in a speech before the Radio and Television News Directors Association in Chicago, Murrow blasted TV's emphasis on entertainment and commercialism at the expense of public interest in his "wires and lights" speech:

"During the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: Look now, pay later."

By now it's clear how right he was. The US has partly brought this problem onto itself. You could still fix it. However your current administration has decided to make it even worse by defunding public broadcasters. Instead it is allowing billionaire megadonors like Larry Ellison to expand their media empires in unprecedented ways, now combining Skydance-Paramount (including CBS, now under editor-in-chief Bari Weiss) and possibly soon Warner Brothers Discovery (including HBO and CNN) and TikTok, arguably the most influential social media platform right now, under the Ellison family umbrella. This would be a media empire that would put even Rupert Murdoch to shame.

As it stands the signs indicate that the US will be subjected to more intentional outrage and rage bait in the coming years. Hell, the White House itself is deliberately posting jingoistic, xenophobic, racist memes and AI videos. Threatening NATO members Canada and Greenland with annexation.
They are designed to signal superiority over the political enemy to the in-group and to dehumanise the out-group(s), immigrants and anybody who dares to disagree with their neighbours being snatched off the streets by poorly trained ICE goons. But they are also clearly designed to produce outrage, otherwise an AI video featuring a president dumping liquid manure on protesters from his military plane or a distasteful AI Gaza holiday resort or Studio Ghibli/ASMR deportation camp AI slop cannot be explained. They want to fuel outrage and to distract you. To pull wool over your eyes. Don't let them. Keep resisting, keep standing up for your rights, for your neighbours, for your democracy!

If you don't want people to be thrilled with outrage, if you don't want them to succumb to the distraction machine and to the firehose of bullshit, counter it. Show them you won't be distracted or gaslighted. Support and fund your public broadcasters. Don't let them be destroyed. Be vocal. Vote accordingly. Concentrate on the most important matters. The idea of democracy has a longer breath than these authoritarian losers.

You further said in #10:

Kids worked after school and dreamed of the wonderful future ahead.

Kids shouldn't have to work after school. A society can be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members. Often children and teenagers. I know, I know. You are talking about teenagers voluntarily working to earn money for a car or a house or a college education. Why would someone choose to do that in addition to their full-time education at school? Because effectively working two jobs at the same time is so fun? No. Kids back then did it because they could actually afford some important stuff from the money they made working an entry level job.

Guess what: cars, houses and colleges have all become inaccessibly expensive compared to real wages in the US. Wages have not risen in accordance with inflation for starters. No teenager today can earn enough money to buy a house (in a reasonable amount of time). Cars are pretty expensive too, especially since many smaller (electric) cars are no longer available in the US.

No teenager working an entry level job can afford to go to college without entering into crippling debt. This is due to the obscene fees for-profit universities are allowed to ask for in your country, the utter lack (except for community colleges) of fine/prestigious public universities (as they do exist in other countries), the end of student debt relief (which itself was only a band-aid solution for a structural problem, namely the rampant commercialisation of higher education), inflation (which still continues to exist despite baseless claims to the contrary) and the US housing crisis, in part caused by artificial scarcity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_crisis_in_the_United_States

I wonder why kids in the US don't dream of a bright future anymore? Why don't they begin breaking their back for corporate America while in school anymore? Are they THAT lazy? While the octogenarian politicians in the US continue doing "business as usual" in terms of climate change and actually want to increase fossil fuel drilling. Do these kids not want to pay for the next subscription service? Why do they rent, why don't they just buy a home for a few hundred thousand dollars? Are they spoiled brats? Mysteries of the 21st century.

If you want kids to look confidently look into the future, to be motivated and productive, don't tell them that they have it easy. Don't view them as lazy or spoiled. Don't sugar-coat their future, don't tell them everything will be fine if they just keep going doing "business as usual". Work towards a situation in which real wages actually allow them to afford and make their own future. To own property. To pursue higher education without crippling debt. To be safe from bodily harm and natural disasters. To be healthy because their lungs are protected from pollutants like particulate matter. And because everybody comes together in solidarity to implement a functional public healthcare system serving all. Don't allow those in power to sell off your public lands and national parks to fossil fuel companies. Don't slash the budgets of vital scientific agencies like the CDC, NASA, NOAA, EPA, NPS, NIST. If you want young people to be excited about the future, give them something to be excited about.

And on weekends, they could bicycle or hike for miles without their parents worrying that they'd be murdered.

Yes, indeed. Why can't kids these days go outside more? I mean, assuming they are not five-year olds at risk of being arrested by ICE agents for their parent's alleged immigration status.

Why don't kids bike through sprawling suburbs (originally designed to foster racial segregation), where everything is too far away to reach on foot. Why don't they ride their bikes through car-centric cities with little to no bicycle infrastructure or walkable areas, on high-speed stroads without sidewalks, filled with many more cars than in the 1950s, lined with parking lots, dead malls and department stores? Why don't kids on their bicycles want to share the road with 80% "Light Trucks" like the Ford F-150 or the Cybertruck? Kids these days, how selfish of them. Surely that must be due to the parents that have to worry about their kids getting murdered. Despite crime rates actually falling continually for the past three decades: https://ourworldindata.org/us-crime-rates

It couldn't possibly be because of structural car-centricity. And the explosion of SUV/pickup sales in the recent decade. And worsening traffic safety for pedestrians and bicycle riders. And the lack of functional public transport, walkable areas and bike infrastructure that would allow all members of society, children, visually impaired, disabled and the elderly to participate independently in public life without having to rely on a relative or friend to drive them in their car. Or a minibus shuttle for the elderly by the local church.
It is actually possible to have functional, clean, pleasant, frequent, reliable public transport. The US simply choses not to because it wouldn't be as good for the bottom line of its car industry. Better keep them addicted to and dependent on cars.

Here are some sources:
Massive Hazards: How Bigger, Heavier Light Trucks Endanger Lives
https://www.nsc.org/getmedia/18f9c2b1-eb20-4a3e-b916-8f96161a9a26/rtz-light-trucks-report.pdf

In 2022 the US had by far the highest pedestrian death rate (2.33 deaths per 100,000) of all 28 high-income countries studied (cf. Figure 1) and was one of few countries in which the death rate had risen substantially since 2013 (it fell in most other countries):
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/74/wr/mm7408a2.htm

If you want kids to (be able to) go outside more, you should support urbanism, inclusive and walkable neighbourhoods, bicycle infrastructure (like separated bike paths next to the road with curbs and spatial separation), more affordable and reliable public transport. Push for US cities to reintroduce the public tram lines they lost in the mid 20th century when General Motors and other car manufacturers bought them up and ripped them out to increase demand for their own product. Get rid of minimum parking requirements and use land more efficiently (parking lots cost municipalities a lot of money without generating sufficient revenue). Don't support the widening of highways (induced demand will follow). Invest in long-distance high-speed rail. Connect major cities with usable, that is reliable and frequent, railway lines. Change the image of public transport, get rid of the faulty idea that it's only for those too poor to afford a car. It can be great for everybody and will lead to a more inclusive and less divided society.

A society in which kids can once again safely explore the outside world on their own terms, without needing their "soccer mom" to drive them everywhere. Wouldn't that be something?

Back in the day I could've read your post! But now I've gotta play candy crush

@salmon_rushdie said:

Back in the day I could've read your post! But now I've gotta play candy crush

But still. He does seem to have some degree of an ever so vague semblance of an absolutely relative point.

Just think when we all was living in the African rainforrest.... it must've been beautiful

yes...i dont get why people tend to live in places of winter. whats the point? pay bills and get forced inside couse the outside nature is as oblivion?

but I also seriously think it had been better if human just lived i forrests. think, we haven't had any co\2, we wouldn't be overpopulated (because of that we not can give food to nine milliards forrest setlers) and we could just have lived in act with nature. to a dream :)

im 8

You're talking about , quality of life, what springs to mind is the devil looks after his/ her own, i still like living and breathing , and reality, (even though I'm skint) living under Gods love as would anyone who was tricked by the dark lord xxx

When you’re dropped into water, you either swim, float, or sink. Survival requires adaptation. Every generation is dropped into its own historical water—economic pressure, wars, social change, technology, and shifting expectations.

Those who sink don’t get to tell the story; those who swim or float do. As we age, our capacity to carry new burdens weakens. Change feels heavier, faster, and louder. Consequently, we look backward to a time when we could still carry the load, and we often mistake that past ability to survive for cultural superiority.

The past may feel better to some, but likely not because it was objectively "easier." It’s because they made it through. Today, they might simply feel like they cannot keep up with the current pace for much longer.

Personally, I don’t remember the past as being better or worse. Throughout my ups and downs, I can at least say I had some kind moments—even with a special friend I miss dearly. I remember things because I survived them, and what I remember has marked me. The rest has been forgotten, whether it was good or bad. I don’t need to be reminded of the hard days.

Elon Musk has half a trillion, I have 33pence in my bank , I bet my 33p , I'm happier.
What's worse than having nothing you want, having everything you want xxx