No Stupid Questions

You complain about what you experience whether it's genocide or losing a shoe. Humans everywhere complain. It's not unique to the West.

People from non-Western countries complain too; it's just that in a dictatorship complaining can get you thrown in prison or worse so people take care not to complain too much in public.

Because the internet is majority English speaking, giving us a louder voice to shout with, also the profit incentives of social media and "news" outlets have them running the most outraging stories that will sell adverts and attention

For the majority of the last century, life has been pretty great for Americans, essentially putting them on top of the world. Generations have seen nothing but life improving for their children and grandchildren, with no indication of it slowing down. For most of this time, many people haven't even needed to really sacrifice much for it the way that previous generations have.

This is finally starting to change.

Decades ago, we were told we'd finally have to start sacrificing to make a better life for our children. That didn't sit well with some people.

Millions of people are coming to the West (not just the US) for a better life, and have been for generations. While we're getting more tax dollars, resources are being spread more thin.

As well, it's been harder for people to earn a living. Before some time in the 1970s, company earnings were tightly coupled with employee earnings. Since then, company productivity and earnings have skyrocketed, while inflation-adjusted employee earnings have stagnated. Of course, employee productivity continues to skyrocket with advances in technology.

Nowadays, the "current" generation is feeling the pain.

Before, a person could graduate high school and find a good job to be able to afford a house, a car, and a family. Sometimes their spouse needed to work, too.

Nowadays, two people working in a household often can't afford to own a home. Yet the companies they're working for are making more money than ever.

Long story short, the US has been on top of the world for decades, and for the last half a century, they've been funneling their wealth upwards while taking away from the working class. There was so much money to go around that it wasn't enough to notice for generations. But now, people aren't just noticing -- they're feeling it.

And there doesn't seem to be any agreement on what needs to be done to make it better. (Partially because it's cheaper to fund media-based distractions than to fund social programs that would help people, or to tax corporations and the rich!)

1. When you’re chasing your next meal, you don’t have time to complain. Western society enables us to shift our priorities to higher levels on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
2. Feelings project differently in different cultures. For example, Spanish speaking people often align depression with physical exhaustion.
3. You many not know the people well enough to know their most intimate thoughts and intentions. Complaining in autocratic societies could be considered dissent and get you killed.
4. Similar to 3, they may be treating you as a D-list celebrity or a tourist because they have something to gain from doing so. Refer to point 1.
5. Consider the audience. Who are the kind of people who have frequent access to Internet in these countries and would want to talk to Western citizens?

I have the same observation. My guess: people aren't made for hapiness, but for the pursuit of hapiness. Quality of life has not been improving for most in EU, au contraire.

I think this is a classic case of "The complainers are way more vocal than the life enjoyers", combined with modern technology being set up to promote controversial content. When someone's enjoying this life and being chill, they also don't usually care about spreading thier message. The complainers are either memetic or often political and seem to enjoy a much greater platform. Also more controversial content generates more negative engagement, and most social media promotes content that has high engagement, because it benefits them to have users engage and stay on the site longer.

I think it's part of human nature to try to improve things. If we just said "be happy with what you have" we wouldn't have the very nice things we enjoy today.

But at the same time people are wary of change, and if something works well it is a risk to try to improve things. Older people have been around a long time, so nostalgia and routine is more engrained so they'll be more critical of change even if it works out in the long run.

But no matter how good it gets people can ALWAYS find something to bitch about and some are just insufferable

This has the same energy as boomers secure in their owned homes saying younger people struggling to afford rent are ungrateful complainers who should work harder. "I'm not experiencing it, so it must not exist!"

Lift others up.

Well, people in general seem to be more vocal when something isn't going right compared to when everything is perfect and amazing.

Let's also remember that the internet is not entirely reflective of real life, that people exaggerate, and that we only have the perspective of the person speaking/writing at a specific point in time.

Do the people complaining in those countries have more free speech and involvement in politics than the people from other countries?

Social media gets more engagement (and therefore more ad money) from people who are upset, so it intentionally shows you stuff that's bad/stuff to complain about.

Also, it's important to complain about stuff. Not too much, but definitely some. If people never complained about 16 hour workdays in poor working conditions, we'd still be doing that.

expectations. We expect being able to own a home and be secure in our lifestyle right through retirement till death and that is not a thing anymore. If I was secure in my home and that I could get healthcare and eat somewhat healthy I would not complain much at all. Although the whole privacy and rights being torn apart would also be complained but im in the us.

You gotta watch that short YouTube about a book called "cultural map".

It's gauging various cultures and how they handle different aspects of society. It doesn't cover openly talking about positivity or negativity since it's focused on business. But the framework is all the same.

For example it put in words things that everyone knows, like Frenchmen are confrontational, Japanese are very hierarchical. Then it goes into plot twist territory.

Because there's a lot of shit to complain about, and it feels like things are getting steadily worse. Especially today when I'm watching the rise of fascism in real time, when I'm watching friends and family be persecuted by a push to make bigotry into law, and when it all feels like there's nothing I can do about any of this because I'm just some guy.

Yes, I know that children are starving in Africa. No, pointing that out does not make me feel better.

It is my experience that people who have little tend to appreciate what they do have while those who have more complain about not having even more. It doesn't matter what "IT" is, the monkey part of our brain always wants even more of it. When that doesn't happen, the tendency is to focus on others as being the cause of not getting what they perceive to be deserved, hence complaining.

I see you've asked this very thing and it didn't go over well for you in the other instance.

America is not entirely immune from the problems you've seen in Europe. Different continents, different sets of problems. America's problem is how it takes any and every chance it has had, to be a more prosperious country and pisses it away by allowing very few rich people and corporations take it entirely over.

And it is at the expense of the populace. What's there to be grateful for when YOUR country is the one offering free healthcare, when America has pressurized it's people in a 'pay or die' situation?

I would have guessed they don't know you well enough to be comfortable about you, but here you are on the Internet complaining to strangers.

plus eggs were getting ridiculously expensive. not long ago they were at $12 a dozen when we bought them