Looking around at all the failing institutions and organizations that surround us, it is easy to ask the question: Is everything broken?
The government seems broken. The current U.S. administration seems intent on dismantling many departments. However, even before that, the legislative body was so deeply divided that new laws rarely got passed. Additionally, the judicial branch is rife with corruption.
Education seems broken. Teachers’ salaries are not competitive with other, non-teaching jobs. Many schools are underfunded, and are overburdened with numerous requirements. Educational outcomes are declining.
Health care seems broken. A family can go bankrupt if one person gets sick. Medical knowledge and technology has never been better, and yet not everyone has equal access to it.
The media seems broken. Due to mergers and bankruptcies, media outlets are concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The Internet has disrupted traditional delivery and funding methods, which has left newsrooms slashed. In some cases, misinformation and clickbait have replaced actual reporting.
The climate seems broken. Storms are more powerful, droughts more severe, floods are more frequent, and so on. Events that happened once a century now happen once a decade, leading to greater damage and more deaths.
The list goes on and on. Wealth disparity, racial relations, ecosystem collapse, cultural loneliness, immigration, overdose deaths, housing, and more. Systems are increasingly hard to navigate, expensive, and ineffective.
Or is this merely pessimistic thinking? There have always been difficulties. Every generation has challenges to overcome: world wars, financial depressions, assassinations, disease outbreaks, natural disasters. Are things actually worse today than they were, say, 100 years ago? 500 years ago? 10,000?
What do you think? Is everything broken?
Related questions: What is the greatest problem facing humanity? Will the future be better than the present? Why do we put up with unhappiness? Is it a cruel world?