/wiz/ - Wizardry

What do you think about the idea of “collective suffering” among normies or the average person right now?

It feels like there has been a shift in the narrative over the past 10 to 15 years where more average people see themselves as victims of larger systems like billionaires or elites. There is more talk about inequality, exploitation, and how the system is rigged. But at the same time I remember not that long ago when those same kinds of people would openly mock or exclude social recluses or anyone outside the norm.

Now the middle class seems like it is shrinking, people are more anxious, more online, more influenced by social media. You see things like constant TikTok consumption, crypto scams, gambling getting normalized, and what looks like a general decline in critical thinking or at least more anti intellectual attitudes. Is it fair for them to feel like the social contract is being eroded?

It also seems like AI is going to disrupt a lot of jobs and could end up humbling a lot of people who currently feel secure in their place in the system.

Were the normies due for their reckoning?