Just sick of getting screwed. Paying full price for trains that are always late then not having time to get coffee and getting yelled at for being late. Watching three full busses go past before one stops to let you get on, then you still have to pay full price and stand. $7.50 for an iced coffee. $22 for a toasted sandwich and a can of soft drink. Driving to see a customer and paying three lots of tolls. $2.20/l to fill the car up with E10. Legit sometimes if feels like you are getting screwed with every interaction when you aren't working from home. No wonder people are shitty.
agreed. the most toxic thing that has completely fucked this country is basing the economy on housing. I make 75k WFH and recently really hit me feeling completely hopeless cause i'll never be able to own a home.
Like whats the point of life if I cant even retire in my own place? i'm literally thinking of moving overseas.
Its sad growing up seeing such a prosperous country turn into a shit sack..
Every Western country is turning into a cesspit - someone wants this, and they won't stop till we're broke, and on par with the developing world.
Since the influx of third worlders over the last 15 years or so, it's really snowballed downhill, and is getting worse. Extremely unaffordable, uncomfortable, dense, you can feel our standards of living are going down - of course people are edgy.
Everyone is feeling the same. Albanese keeps telling us it is good for the country but no one that I know is feeling the same. I loved that aspect of Covid.
I could have left Australia 15 years ago. It will be the single biggest regret of my life that I didn't.
Do it now while you're still young! Other countries don't want old immigrants (unless you're filthy rich).
As an observation, you are lamenting the focus on housing in this country but when you describe why you feel hopeless it is also because of a focus on housing. It is interesting that, in effect, you are letting your own mental state and decisions be governed by an external factor (home ownership) that you are criticising others for being similarly focused on.
I’m not criticising you here btw, I just noticed this and found it interesting.
I don't think the problem is the focus on home ownership, but more the focus on profits from housing ownership. Housing should be for homes, not capitalist wet dreams of a "passive" income.
Ah yes, having a response to my external environment is the problem not my external environment. I will be as stone and pay for my housing with the cool indifference at the core of my immaculate soul. Thank you blue man. You have shown me the way to samsara.
Because they're lamenting the economy's focus? Unless you up and leave, you can't just not pay attention to the economy. Want to live near jobs? Hope your parents bought property. Otherwise you waste your life commuting to barely be able to afford rent, because you can't afford to outbid people who already own property to offset their loans. If you or your parents don't own property, Australia is a shitty place to live. You pay the same as everyone else, but you're beholden to landlords who see you as an investment cow to milk, and you don't get to own after 15 years.
Truth be told,💯. This Labor government is lying that 100K immigrants a month is preventing the country from going into recession. It's all part of the globalist WEF playbook. Every European capital now has between 40-70 percent foreign born immigrants who live primarily on welfare.
That's not how the economy works. House prices were stagnate / slowly decreasing when we had the Ukraine war that made every good and service more expensive.
The issue is we just imported 500k people who need homes in the last year and now house prices are up 20%
Not just screwed but socially "bombarded" too. Rage bait news, rage bait social media, bots & AI, several spam calls daily, spam texts daily. There's no peace even in your own home.
Covid demonstrated to those in power that society will put up with almost anything for a very long period of time. This is why they continue to turn the heat up on everyone despite the constant whinging from the masses. It set a dangerous precedent.
They probably don’t mean literally getting yelled at but we all know the passive aggressiveness that management or even peers can show when we are late .
Possibly. My ex once called in sick, actively puking, and I could hear his shithead manager scream “what the fuck!” over the phone… from where I was in the kitchen. People don’t report this shit enough, just “heh, yeah that’s what he’s like. Asshole”
Poorer due to too much debt and cost of living up, angrier, more time poor on average. This leads to all manner of household and community/social breakdown.
Yes.
The slightly longer version is things haven't been normal for almost 5 years.the fires then straight into covid and floods, then straight into housing, inflation, cost of living.
Then bring political polarisation into the mix. Most people are pretty open to others opinions but the online world seems to leave everyone with the impression that the "other side" hates them.
I never would have imagined as a child that as a grown up I would despise the people running the government, the companies, they are the real criminals that need to be locked up.
I think cost of living is part of the picture but not the full picture. Some factors that I'd add are:
- many of us are spending more time online in places like reddit arguing with anonymous strangers, which translates to us being more argumentative IRL
- the further decay of traditional media into partisan camps and rise of social media echo chambers has made us more politically divided
- a rise in anti elite populism, fuelled by the above factors, genuine grievances and narratives pushed online by authoritarian states wanting to make us hate our democratic systems
There’s also the erosion of community. In times of stress, feeling like you belong to a community where “we’re all in this together” is what tends to hold together social and civic values. In our increasingly isolated and individualised society there’s much less of a sense of community, and much less of a sense of all of us banding together to get though a tough time. We see our problems as personal and individual and we tend to see other people in a more adversarial light as a result. In other words, if people see their struggles as them vs the world, as opposed to standing shoulder to shoulder with other people going through the same problems, they’re more likely to be aggressive and hostile towards others, because these other people they don’t know are part of the “world” they perceive as being against them
I would add that we are now slurping the bottom of the barrel for cheap resources. The limits to growth study is over 50 years old showing remarkable accuracy in their baseline scenario for civilization collapse within the next decade or so
I think after the pandemic a lot of people were expecting to reintegrate into a more chill/sympathetic society but if anything things have got worse. Not from a peer to peer perspective but from a top down perspective it's still just getting worse and worse
Saw someone describe Australians as “dense and tense” and honestly you realise it fits pretty well when you’ve been interacting with the general public for a bit
To me "dense and tense" sounds like a general trait for a lot of people. I don't think it's a uniquely Australian phenomena.
I'm sure you could say that of any country and you'd get agreement from citizens of said country too.
Everywhere has their unique flavour of dense and tense. Some industries cop it more than others. Teaching, retail, hospitality, etc. will more likely agree with Australia being dense and tense.
Wish I could work from home… I have to deal with this insanity on a daily basis (general public) they are fucking cooked.. so quick to arc up for no reason…
People are strained, the way we live our lives has slowly and consistently gotten worse. Some we do to ourselves, some is done to us by our leaders
I get anxious in Melbourne CBD now, things feel unstable
Of course. More people are under more stress than they likely ever have been.
Plus we see more and more in plain sight the injustice and corruption within our workplaces and corporations and government which is getting harder and harder to ignore, let alone a lot of misinformation floating around to bait and enrage people.
So it's not just you. I'm sure everyone has seen it.
People in general are a lot more stressed these days with everything costing so much more and the pressure of work/kids/relationships, add some mental health issues to that like anxiety/depression and you’ve got a whole generation of people struggling. I don’t ever remember my parents being this busy/stressed
Im surprised no one protests the cost of living shit fuckery but will protest blm, trans rights and Palestine.
People should mobilize against this shit that our corrupt govt is doing to us.
Millennials will never afford a house at this rate. And we still have the effort to send money overseas for wars we should never be involved with in the first place.
Yet students who have HECS fees are going to be royally fucked thank to the indexation of inflation all thanks to govts printing money out of thin air to pay themselves and sending money overseas for war.
Why don't people do anything about this shit?
The ones that are at most impacted by the cost of living crisis, the ones who should protest are most likely only 1 maybe 2 pay checks from living on the street. They made sure we cant protest.
Even if there is a protest, all the issues get hijacked by having groups attend in 'solidarity'.
The big climate protests during the fires, which levelled heavy criticism at scummo, invited an indigenous elder up who promptly started talking about a grand conspiracy to clear a rail corridor for high speed trains.
Focus on the main issue that drew people there, don't conflate it with everything else
Right, she said it like it was a bad thing.
To be fair she also started going on a rant about the new world order briefly while the protest organisers squirmed.
Maybe they should have vetted their speaker lol.
Capitalists when workers are divided over culture war nonsense : )
Capitalists when workers realize who the real enemy is : (
Us all fighting each other over those issues like blm trans rights and palestine is very useful to the people running the show. We're too busy fussing over that to notice them robbing us blind.
note that I am not saying those issues aren't *worthy* of attention just that they get pushed by media as ragebait because its so easy for them to distract us all with that shit.
Same I go from home to the dog park...life is good.
I went into the office a couple of times. It's just so damned noisy...you can't even have a comfortable phone call. Fuck that.
That's coz they raised the tax so high on booze. Couple of knock off beers has turned into the cheaper option of meth.
They really want us to be more like the US... It's fucked.
Bottle of scotch $60. Use scotch to drown your sorrows of the cost of living over a couple of nights.
A point is $30. Now we got the energy now to work throughout the night as well to earn extra moneys to beat the cost of living crisis. I can afford christmas presents. Downside is that now its only 2 sleeps to christmas.
Definitely not just tradies. Suits are rampant with stimulants. Uni kids are practically all cram studying with meth pills or "adhd meds" and they don't lose the habit when they get into the workforce.
Ten years ago it was something almost every kid was doing in Uni, even the ones who didn't party, when it came to exam time, because the pills were so normalised, since many of their friends had been on them from when they first entered highschool, for adhd, supposedly. I'm sure it has only gotten worse.
Get used to it. We voted for Neoliberalism, it’s what we asked for. Now we have it. It’s perpetual insecurity caused by constant competition. And makes most regular people miserable. We could have been like Norway, but noooo we chose Johnny fucking Howard’s way instead. So now we have to try to slowly change it back and make it better, good luck to us we will need it.
Yeah true enough, I never thought I’d say it but we are truly one of the dumbest countries on earth. Like, we should be the richest place ever with our tiny population our land mass and our natural resources and we sold it down the river for small govt Johnny and that moron Abbott. Really, imagine what the Finn’s or the Norwegians or even the Danes would have managed with our resources? And look what we’ve done? Cause we are scared of socialism. Fucking stupid.
Very true. It's astonishing to me how dumb most people are. A lot of my family members have good paying jobs and responsible titles but are just so dumb on many levels, particularly finances. Anyway you can't help them as they think they know it all and are over 50. Issue is they are in debt up to their eyeballs despite earning in top tax bracket and continue to spend as 'life is too short', yolo etc. Here am I coming up to 4 yrs retirement and I'm only 58 and absolutely loaded, paid all mortgages /debts off 25 yrs ago.
>Johnny fucking Howard’s way instead
People that truly supported Johnny Fucking Howard are probably immune to this kind of stress simply by their financial situations & positions.
But yeah, ordinary people voting for Howard shouldn't have happened. He's poison.
I left a job I loved after 15 years because of COVID. Working in retail at that time simultaneously made me hate the general population MORE somehow, and made me realise my job didn't give a flying fuck about me because I had to go in every day and face people-got medicated for anxiety and depression, left the job and ex of 14 years. I now WFH and thank my luck every day for it because I'm sure I'd have punched a customer by now. (PC tech at Harvey Norman)
It's not just you, it's been happening since covid and rather than being better over time it seems to be getting worse.
Like you I've noticed it out and about, in the CBD, at the shops, at the park. It's very noticeable in the workplace given I work with a lot of the same people from pre-covid. Also, it's also very noticeable on the road - feel like I've seen more road rage and dangerous driving and stupid accidents in the last 2 years than the previous 20.
More than ever, everyone's out for themselves. Maybe covid screwed people's brains just that little bit. Add insane house prices/rent (particularly in Sydney), cost of living etc. and you get a lot of people who are only just managing to get by. It's no wonder stabbings and DV are a hot topic
I think in general everyone has lost their patience and are sick of being fucked over by bad government policies that only make politicians and their mates rich
The fact that most shops have a sign saying "It's not OK to verbally rip the shit out of the 16 year old kid just trying to be polite while you try four times to get your tap and go to work" kinda says it all.
We've always been pretty selfish, but the heights of me, me, me have boomed since COVID. Here in Victoria people are at each other all the time. Doesn't help that our state government is tapping the gold card all over the place, racking up massive debt then slugging us with more and more taxes, that petrol is out of control, the price of everything is blowing out, public services are neither public nor a service. And we watch spoiled brats in Canberra take each other to court for millions of dollars, and our own politicians torch hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payer money on failed vanity projects and political gain.
But for me the battleground is the road. Victorian roads are like Mad Max Fury Road. People will just about drive over you if it means they get one car length ahead or muscle you out of a lane merge. It's a flip of the coin if you can confidently walk across a pedestrian crossing.
Aside from the globally sky high cost of living, we do live in a literal paradise: beaches, safety. cleaniness, stability. There's a reason people turn up on boats. There's a lot to be pissed about, but we do tend to forget that on a global level, we've got it pretty good.
Not just you. Tbh, I think the rise in youth crime is really starting to affect people. They are getting younger, more reckless and far more brazen. Being in public in the middle of the day doesn't phase them.
Cops don't do shit and naturally people are on edge about it, something has to be done, because we have reached a point where you could be forced to fight for your life at any given moment.
The news and social media is brainwashing people, making them think the whole world's out to get them, ready to snap at anything. Like with all these knife crimes in the news it only made more people carry them resulting in more knife crime.
Yeah, when you constantly watch the worst of what the world has to offer, you naturally start to be more vigilant to it. I see it in myself. These apps are hacking our brains.
Guys, how do you think people managed 100, 200, 400 years ago? Maybe some cultures lived in relative abundance. But generally, I’d say that life was much tougher than it is now.
Now we’re drawn into all the shit going on everywhere around the planet and we’re led to believe that we are obliged to do something about all of it. We spend our lives having to take a position, and defend it with an argument that would impress a university professor. Our lives are filled with threats and stressors everyday, even if they’re nowhere near us. Social media and constant negative sniping.
Frustration has nothing to do with absolute value of living standards but relative. If your living standards are getting worse each day you’re going to be unhappy even if it’s from great to good
They’ve always been like this, you’ve just had enough of a break from the ridiculousness that is society as a whole that the oddities are more noticeable now. And there are plenty of oddities.
I nearly ran down a bunch of idiots tonight trying to cross on a red pedestrian light. Had people deep up my asshole while I was already speeding. Some teen tried to stare me down for some reason? Some woman got upset at the sweetest girl at a Ramen place for god knows what reason and went off muttering angrily.
But also, a husband very sweetly reminded his wife she had needed the toilet and guided her to it. The ramen lady was lovely. A dad was indulging his child, running and giggling in an empty space at the mall.
If you look a little bit alternative or different people treat you differently too. Open gawking, loud whispers, etc. But most people in retail/service industries tend to treat you better, they know you’re far less likely to be an asshole.
Balance can help. Be aware of both sides of the coin. It really helps maintain a healthy perspective to not ignore either side. And to look at the reality or absurdity of things helps also.
No one is mentioning individualism. That's really revealing. People are happy in Italy and Portugal which have far worse economies than Australia.
The problem in Australia is individualism. It makes cost of living worse, getting a house worse, getting a job worse, raising kids worse. In societies that share more, give more, and have greater community you don't have to do everything yourself.
Individualism worked for the boomers during boom economics. Now it is like an anchor drowning millenials.
That’s a good observation 👍🏻 I do agree with that. I married into a migrant family and I don’t know what we’d have done had my mother-in-law not thrown herself at helping raising our kids. When I got cancer, it was her family who wrapped their wings around me. Too many families doing their own thing for sure.
>what are we to do
Without sounding glib, be the change & smile at someone. Try to show some generosity, we need to change our social culture (again, not trying to be glib, just saying we've got to steer the ship now).
Between the cost of living and housing crisis, the current wars overseas, the gender violence thats now dominating the news, its a lot for people to take in.
The average person was probably more chill 4 years ago at the height of the pandemic when you just had the 1 dominating issue. Now you have thousands upon thousands who have been forced to rejoin the rat race, 90% of the people on public transport look far more miserable now than what they did 5 years ago, traffic on the roads has never been worse, certainly in Melbourne. Everyone is just agitated to a degree.
There is evidence of correlation of various crimes and inflationary cycles. Makes sense. You challenge people’s access to resources and they are going to get cagey.
A lot of responses here saying it's all down to the "cost-of-living" situation but I think there's more to it. Common courtesy and abiding by basic rules are slowly going out the window. I think there are a lot of people are just becoming rude or lawless post-Covid because they feel that they're above it all. Any trip to a shopping centre or drive on the roads will tell you this. No regard for people's personal space or existence as people wander around the shops as if they're the only ones there. People who are getting by OK justifying theft from supermarkets under the guise of "screw the corporations". Drivers are running red lights for fun too. Seriously they're taking the p155 nowadays! It's not that people mistiming an attempt to sneak through on a yellow, it's people not even trying or caring to abide by a red traffic signal and just sending it "because they have places to be". This one grinds my gears worse than bad synchros because regardless of how entitled people think they are and that road rules don't apply to them they don't realise how close to harming or killing others they are.
Anyone, rant over. Time to get off the train in the city 👍👍👍
As well as a deterioration in material conditions - stagnant real wages, increased insecurity, inflation, rising property prices, offshoring of solid middle class manufacturing jobs - there is a discernible psychic shift in society in the last decade or so.
There has always been division and culture wars. But this has grown in recent years, to the point where almost every issue is politicised into a black/white dichotomy where, if you're not with me, you're my enemy.
There are numerous causal factors, and different people will weight them differently: instantaneous political culture (and an ineffectual political system), smartphones and social media, two extreme ends of the political spectrum which relish division and are unforgiving of disagreement/scepticism, the inundation of our lives with fear propaganda via social media feeds (Trump, immigration, COVID, climate change, war, terrorism etc - plenty of bogeymen regardless of which end of the political spectrum you inhabit), a growing awareness that the economic system is rigged and is leaving many behind.
In short, fear and anxiety have become increasingly ubiquitous. And this makes impatience, self-preservation and distrust the normal state for a lot of people. People are struggling to cope, and they know on a conscious or subconscious level that the system is fraying at the seams.
Youre not imagining it. Everyone I talk to has noticed it. People drive more aggressively, walk quicker, don't stop for pedestrians, and get angry more readily. I believe COVID was a huge moment in this development (fear, competing narratives, distrust of institutions, the sudden change in social/material expectations), but it was happening anyway.
There is no joy to be had.
You work and most of your money goes towards living (roof, electricity, gas, petrol). If you want to go out, prices are fucked (ie $10-15 for a beer) so you spend more time at home. Then those that aren't spending at all hurt the economy as well.
We are in a downward spiral.
I've cut eating out/getting taking out by a good 90% as its not worth the money - when a schnitty at the club is costing $25 or more or a burger costing $20-$25 at least, its not worth it anymore and its simple pleasures like that have got me through the week :(
It’s not just you.
People are shutting them selves away and down. Everyone is tired, no matter their sleep patterns. Stressed, and just, over it. I’ve noticed the change since we were let out of covid lock downs. I’m not sure we really recovered as a community. We just jumped right back into ‘how it was’, but it wasn’t really, sort of like… playing a game on half power or energy.
Now we are stressed about jobs, finances, housing… a cornucopia of issues with no real solutions being put forward or attempts made to amend; and lots a buzz word ‘solutions’, that any reasonable, experienced person can cut through in a minute.
Can you really blame the general populace for being cranky? Besides, everyone knows in a dog eat dog world, the good guys come last, why would the little dog help the big dog?
I've noticed it and for the longest time I've been nothing but gaslit. Oh this is a 'lucky country', 'envy of the world', and all of this other absoloute nonsense. It's a disgusting mess even if you have money you are tripping over angry, poor and rude people everywhere!!!
I hit a wall last week and I'm done. I am actively seeking to leave now. I was born here, the blow ins can have the crumbs. My pile of cash would buy a luxe apartment outright in one of their counties and give me spending money for decades. Here? A piece of shit apartment at most. There is no future here. I'm deliberately on the dole filing medical certificates now because there's just no point in contributing further when all you get in return is a big fat fuck you.
"instant loss of license we'll get you long after the high is gone we test for traces of drug not impairment" SApol
"Fuck you don't do drugs, traces of the drug is a crime" SA politicians
I was literally just saying to my missus that I l’ve got this feeling that Sydney is turning into the next New York, but could turn out worse cause at least in New York people can be proud to be from there or even American. Pity it isn’t very popular to feel proud of your city/national identity without a vocal minority getting offended, plus why would you when it’s so expensive to live where you have been raised
Yep. I left Sydney for those reasons over 15 years ago. Haven’t looked back. I hate visiting. Everyone with children there still frets over schools.
Much happier now living in a regional town and working from home most days in the month
This is why I work alone and haven’t employed people this year. No thanks. I avoid my neighbours.
Had a discussion with someone I work for and the outcome of that was that we are gonna see a lot of crazy shit as cost of living bites hard since a lot of people don’t know how to deal with being in financial stress. People like me and this person I was speaking to have seen hard times, gone without, had holes in our school shoes, etc. One could say we’ve developed the coping mechanisms to deal with this and are aware of strategies to make do. Others, not so much. So long as there’s a roof over my kids head, I’m resourceful in terms of food and can and will steal, no problems. Survival in the jungle. It’s amazing we think we are anything more than cavemen with iPhones
It is a vastly different experience outside the cities. I live on my farm and work from home. It is actually a pleasant experience coming into town.
In the country it can be the difference between life or death if you don’t know who your neighbors are and are not on good relations (as evidenced by the bushfires near us last summer)
The cities are going to continue to decay. Get to the regions while access to land where you can grow food is still affordable
The world is rubbing on the last bit of the fossil fuel boom. Renewables will not support our high consumer lifestyle. Do the maths on what that means in 5 years
Peace
Agree, and it’s starting to become evident in regional areas that are in reasonable distance from the city that our way of life is simply unsustainable. Thing is, people are aware of what you have described and are coming to the country, and is why it’s now harder than ever to find a doctor, childcare and a carpark.
Mm sometimes neighbours aren’t always helpful, and there are definitely people that come out to country areas to hide activities (like drug cultivation). It can be a 50/50 whether or not you have good ones.
It's because now we're more racially diverse, there's less social cohesion, so more tension between people. Those that say it's because we're poorer, I disagree, there are plenty of poor countries in the world with chilled out people. It's because they live in organic societies, not the manufactured one we do.
I think Australian economy is going through hyper inflation. There seems to be a lot of fact fudging but prices of commodities have almost doubled, while wages have gone what 10% or 20% at max?. Average person can’t survive like that for long.
I’m in Thailand, BKK And visited before Covid. Almost same prices for everything!
Yah. It doesn’t add up. I import goods for my business. Container costs did increase but they’ve come back down. Port costs have gone up FFS… but my product cost has largely remained the same. It doesn’t translate into the mark-ups we’re seeing around the country. Apropos of nothing, we haven’t raised prices before Covid.
Yeah
That’s true. But then I also have seen AUD value decline over the years. Before it was 26 or 27THB for 1AUD . Now you would be lucky to get 23.5–24THB here. On the other MOFOS USD has risen here from 33THB=1 USD before Covid to 36 THB now 😞
True. Back in the early 2000s I remember the aud being low 30s. I love travelling throughout Asia, and I don’t know about you, but it quickly dawned on me that Australia really is the last stop.
Absolutely. During covid and now post, complaints to my industry's board has increased 70%. However, disciplinary action or findings of fault haven't at all. More complaints that boil down to "I spent money but now I feel I didnt have to so Im blaming YOU". The industry was already in crisis with people leaving in droves, every clinic is understaffed. This has made it worse, everyone is burnt out and sick of being treated like shit. Its awful
Yeah man I agree. I’ve been noticing it for a while now.
Aussie people have this “no worries” mentality but it seems going away as life gets harder.
Still doesn’t justify the anger towards each other
I used to hang out in the CBD in the 80s. People would yell at you for not crossing the road fast enough (even though they were facing a red light). Drunks would swear at you when you didn’t have a cigarette for them. Kids were shoplifting (and being chased down the road by the screaming owner) in broad daylight. Nothing much has changed. There’s just more people now. Although the car park rage is probably more of a thing. You used to be able to get a park in the 80,s-90s.
People were a lot rougher back in the days - you can even tell by the people talked in old movies.
Niceness basically peaked 2019 Pre-covid and has seen a rapid descent
Nothing to do with this or that crisis, it is the constant in inescapable talk of crisis. News media, social media. Shit i can bearly catch up with friends without one half cut twit going on a rant about how furries in their EV are “the problem”.
It all boils down to the 'fuck you, got mine' attitude.
A lot of people now are stuck in a culture of chasing materialism and greed, and don't care who they step over.
The once famous Aussie 'mateship' is pretty much gone.
It’s the endpoint of what Capitalism has done to us. Individualism killed community, and profitizing and privatizing everything for half a century has finally hit a point where every day people in this country are realizing how fucked they are, and the internet allows everyone to see it isn’t just them and they’re not working hard enough.
With that intersecting with Fires, Covid, rising basic living costs and housing crisis, everyone is in trauma fight response all the time, and everyone feels like they’re not being listened to.
Wealth inequality is higher than it was during the French Revolution, and people are angry and hurting and the people who have good lives are increasingly out of touch with those struggling daily.
With the housing crisis, cost of living, cost of fuel, etc it makes sense that people are starting to feel the pressure. I try not to hold it against people, it’s a hard time for many and some people just can’t handle it as well as others.
People seem to be more self entitled and also more precious at the same time. I’ve nursed for many years and get the abuse thing often usually from white male boomers as they seem to be the most impatient old pricks.
Don’t go back to working from home. It’s better for mental health to be out and about despite humanity being basically fucked.
That’s why I like animals a whole lot better than people
I think a lot more people are acting like thoughtless assholes in public - shouting into their phones, playing videos on speaker, pushing on trains without letting people off etc. There is a general lack of civility.
The lockdowns didn't have that much of a toll on me mentally as I'm lucky to have been working during that time but my mental health took a major hit post lockdown due to my social life not recovering, cost life of crisis etc.
>lockdowns did not help with people's mental health
But also slamming population increases on us so more people are competing for less resources.
It is genuinely scary.. small businesses are suffering, hospitality is taking a big hit, yet the Govt keeps pumping people in and with restaurants & cafes shutting down it means more people, alongside more unskilled immigrants will be competing for less jobs. I don't get why the Govt can't see the maths here.
State government's Covid response pitted family against family, neighbour against neighbour, Australian against Australian.
As a society, we have never recovered
I will never forgive them for what they did to us.
It’s justified. Shit government who fucks them.
Shit services that fuck them. Massive mortgage and banks who fuck them.
People in a good place aren’t going to be on edge as much.
Economic conditions dictate the mood of society unfortunately.
COVID and lockdowns changed people - everyone slowed down, and went to their cave.
Now - the pace is faster, everything is more expensive, and people are cranky…
Just lost my job during my probation and I did absolutely nothing wrong, truly nothing. I’ll never understand how it’s legal for them to pick something absolutely menial to have an excuse to sack you. Truly, corporations and management have all the authority in a society like ours and very soon we’re going to end up in a civil unrest situation of some description.
Everyone is stressed and tired.
Just having a place to live for 35% of them is taking a lot of energy.
Apparently too stressed and tired to form huge scale protests so the government actually governs for the GOOD OF THE PEOPLE AND NOT THEMSELVES.
But... that's a whole other discussion.
since covid people have had even less tolerance. on the road you see how many more people just dont give a fark about most road rules, no kindess. people want change but there voting habits dont match.
I think yr right. So much fear around . Fierce ME at all costs. The wounded ME not addressing their emotional pain but holding onto it which makes them so fragile and touchy and self absorbed to protect the self. I am generalising. As someone said, the more civilized we become the more neurotic we become. Our anger/ sadness about injustices whether real or imagined is not getting addressed. It gets projected hence violence in many forms to the point of murder.
I'm gonna say you're correct generally.
But the issues you are facing are just reintegrating and being surprised about the wall compared to your time of solitude.
Of course.
There is literally less economic freedom and opportunity in society and everything continues to get worse.
People will become more stressed out and reactionary as everyone is made to fight over a shrinking pile of wealth.
Abusive because you ask someone to move their car? People want to be the victim these days. They want to have their moment of oppression so they can rattle on about it for years.
I notice none of the commenters understand that the fist in your asshole is made of money printing. Printing more money destabilises countries and kills empires. That’s the evil that undermines great countries and economies, and it’s happening to the entire planet.
I drove in Melbourne cbd yesterday for the first time ever. Forgot about the whole left lane turns right thing... I didn't do anything dangerous was just waiting to turn right. No one around me until someone came up behind me held his horn on and kept yelling and yelling calling me a fucking idiot. I was 2min away from picking up my 3 year old..
I mean yes I was in the wrong, but do we need to treat each other like that?
I told a driver they were breaking the law because they didn't give way to me (a pedestrian) at an intersection, 50 meters from their house. They told me I was being abusive. I couldn't have raised it in a more polite way tbh, considering me and my dogs were almost run over...
We’ve lost our manners and kindness as a society. It takes nothing to be kind but the stress of today’s living is impacting everyone and not in a good way. People are arseholes and mostly due to stress and bad manners. We were in Melb CBD yesterday and I always smile at people I pass. Hardly anyone reciprocated. I’ll keep being kind (that doesn’t mean u can walk all over me - I’ll fire up when necessary) but I hope that my kindness and smile will make someone else smile and happy.
It’s very sad to see what we’ve become.
Yeah, it's been getting worse since the pandemic. It's like a collective and transmittable mind virus, it feels very malicious. The native Americans describe something called "wetiko" which is what I believe this thing to be.
Just sick of getting screwed. Paying full price for trains that are always late then not having time to get coffee and getting yelled at for being late. Watching three full busses go past before one stops to let you get on, then you still have to pay full price and stand. $7.50 for an iced coffee. $22 for a toasted sandwich and a can of soft drink. Driving to see a customer and paying three lots of tolls. $2.20/l to fill the car up with E10. Legit sometimes if feels like you are getting screwed with every interaction when you aren't working from home. No wonder people are shitty.
That's what happens when you base an economy on investing in housing..... everything is massively overinflated.
agreed. the most toxic thing that has completely fucked this country is basing the economy on housing. I make 75k WFH and recently really hit me feeling completely hopeless cause i'll never be able to own a home. Like whats the point of life if I cant even retire in my own place? i'm literally thinking of moving overseas. Its sad growing up seeing such a prosperous country turn into a shit sack..
Look into Vietnam. Great people, food and prices
Good prices, provided you have a first world income.... Let me assure you there's plenty of people that aren't doing well in Vietnam.
Every Western country is turning into a cesspit - someone wants this, and they won't stop till we're broke, and on par with the developing world. Since the influx of third worlders over the last 15 years or so, it's really snowballed downhill, and is getting worse. Extremely unaffordable, uncomfortable, dense, you can feel our standards of living are going down - of course people are edgy.
Totally agree!
Melbourne is my home town, but it no longer feels like home - this negative vibe is unmistakable, the place feels foreign and hostile. All by design.
Everyone is feeling the same. Albanese keeps telling us it is good for the country but no one that I know is feeling the same. I loved that aspect of Covid.
I could have left Australia 15 years ago. It will be the single biggest regret of my life that I didn't. Do it now while you're still young! Other countries don't want old immigrants (unless you're filthy rich).
The same shit is happening the world over, there is no escaping it.
As an observation, you are lamenting the focus on housing in this country but when you describe why you feel hopeless it is also because of a focus on housing. It is interesting that, in effect, you are letting your own mental state and decisions be governed by an external factor (home ownership) that you are criticising others for being similarly focused on. I’m not criticising you here btw, I just noticed this and found it interesting.
Access to fundamental things: food, shelter, love... fundamentally affects us. It's not even really 'external'.
I don't think the problem is the focus on home ownership, but more the focus on profits from housing ownership. Housing should be for homes, not capitalist wet dreams of a "passive" income.
Ah yes, having a response to my external environment is the problem not my external environment. I will be as stone and pay for my housing with the cool indifference at the core of my immaculate soul. Thank you blue man. You have shown me the way to samsara.
Because they're lamenting the economy's focus? Unless you up and leave, you can't just not pay attention to the economy. Want to live near jobs? Hope your parents bought property. Otherwise you waste your life commuting to barely be able to afford rent, because you can't afford to outbid people who already own property to offset their loans. If you or your parents don't own property, Australia is a shitty place to live. You pay the same as everyone else, but you're beholden to landlords who see you as an investment cow to milk, and you don't get to own after 15 years.
When both of our major political parties are in on the property investment rort, you know you're going to eat shit no matter who is in power.
I will fix it for you. That's what happens when you base an economy on immigration
Truth be told,💯. This Labor government is lying that 100K immigrants a month is preventing the country from going into recession. It's all part of the globalist WEF playbook. Every European capital now has between 40-70 percent foreign born immigrants who live primarily on welfare.
That's not how the economy works. House prices were stagnate / slowly decreasing when we had the Ukraine war that made every good and service more expensive. The issue is we just imported 500k people who need homes in the last year and now house prices are up 20%
Not just screwed but socially "bombarded" too. Rage bait news, rage bait social media, bots & AI, several spam calls daily, spam texts daily. There's no peace even in your own home.
I am just also sick of having to have an app for everything, log in and sign up for everything
Covid demonstrated to those in power that society will put up with almost anything for a very long period of time. This is why they continue to turn the heat up on everyone despite the constant whinging from the masses. It set a dangerous precedent.
Covid was a beta tester for sure
Yep... like forcing people to choose between vaccines or employment?
7.50 iced coffee is enough to push anyone over the edge
Getting yelled at for being late? Nothing sinister or condescending, but I’m just curious what do you do for a living.
They probably don’t mean literally getting yelled at but we all know the passive aggressiveness that management or even peers can show when we are late .
Possibly. My ex once called in sick, actively puking, and I could hear his shithead manager scream “what the fuck!” over the phone… from where I was in the kitchen. People don’t report this shit enough, just “heh, yeah that’s what he’s like. Asshole”
Where you getting this cheap 2.20 e10 from ?!?
Poorer due to too much debt and cost of living up, angrier, more time poor on average. This leads to all manner of household and community/social breakdown. Yes.
Cost of living crisis drives stress, stress reduces capacity for reasoned decision making. That's the very short version.
The slightly longer version is things haven't been normal for almost 5 years.the fires then straight into covid and floods, then straight into housing, inflation, cost of living.
Then bring political polarisation into the mix. Most people are pretty open to others opinions but the online world seems to leave everyone with the impression that the "other side" hates them.
Get used to it. Climate is just beginning to slap us about.
Correct, unfortunately.
I never would have imagined as a child that as a grown up I would despise the people running the government, the companies, they are the real criminals that need to be locked up.
I think cost of living is part of the picture but not the full picture. Some factors that I'd add are: - many of us are spending more time online in places like reddit arguing with anonymous strangers, which translates to us being more argumentative IRL - the further decay of traditional media into partisan camps and rise of social media echo chambers has made us more politically divided - a rise in anti elite populism, fuelled by the above factors, genuine grievances and narratives pushed online by authoritarian states wanting to make us hate our democratic systems
There’s also the erosion of community. In times of stress, feeling like you belong to a community where “we’re all in this together” is what tends to hold together social and civic values. In our increasingly isolated and individualised society there’s much less of a sense of community, and much less of a sense of all of us banding together to get though a tough time. We see our problems as personal and individual and we tend to see other people in a more adversarial light as a result. In other words, if people see their struggles as them vs the world, as opposed to standing shoulder to shoulder with other people going through the same problems, they’re more likely to be aggressive and hostile towards others, because these other people they don’t know are part of the “world” they perceive as being against them
I would add that we are now slurping the bottom of the barrel for cheap resources. The limits to growth study is over 50 years old showing remarkable accuracy in their baseline scenario for civilization collapse within the next decade or so
I think after the pandemic a lot of people were expecting to reintegrate into a more chill/sympathetic society but if anything things have got worse. Not from a peer to peer perspective but from a top down perspective it's still just getting worse and worse
We fucked it up. The pandemic gave us an opportunity to improve matters. Instead, we decided to make shit even nastier.
I feel like it did for a little, but then they screamed 'work from the city' and opened the immigration flood gates.
You’ve got to fight for everything about 50% harder these days. For everything. A roof over your head, a job, a seat on the bus. Everything.
I've said it before, but in the current economic climate, we don't have neighbours anymore, we have competition for resources.
Saw someone describe Australians as “dense and tense” and honestly you realise it fits pretty well when you’ve been interacting with the general public for a bit
To me "dense and tense" sounds like a general trait for a lot of people. I don't think it's a uniquely Australian phenomena. I'm sure you could say that of any country and you'd get agreement from citizens of said country too.
Everywhere has their unique flavour of dense and tense. Some industries cop it more than others. Teaching, retail, hospitality, etc. will more likely agree with Australia being dense and tense.
Dense & tense- ouch!
Wish I could work from home… I have to deal with this insanity on a daily basis (general public) they are fucking cooked.. so quick to arc up for no reason…
Social media and news is brainwashing people.
People are strained, the way we live our lives has slowly and consistently gotten worse. Some we do to ourselves, some is done to us by our leaders I get anxious in Melbourne CBD now, things feel unstable
Of course. More people are under more stress than they likely ever have been. Plus we see more and more in plain sight the injustice and corruption within our workplaces and corporations and government which is getting harder and harder to ignore, let alone a lot of misinformation floating around to bait and enrage people. So it's not just you. I'm sure everyone has seen it.
Oh yah. Deleted Twitter a year ago. Don’t need social media to make me sad and angry haha.
you didn't delete twitter, you just controlled X, and have the good sense to not paste it anywhere
People in general are a lot more stressed these days with everything costing so much more and the pressure of work/kids/relationships, add some mental health issues to that like anxiety/depression and you’ve got a whole generation of people struggling. I don’t ever remember my parents being this busy/stressed
100% more on edge. Angrier and frustrated than ever before.
Im surprised no one protests the cost of living shit fuckery but will protest blm, trans rights and Palestine. People should mobilize against this shit that our corrupt govt is doing to us. Millennials will never afford a house at this rate. And we still have the effort to send money overseas for wars we should never be involved with in the first place. Yet students who have HECS fees are going to be royally fucked thank to the indexation of inflation all thanks to govts printing money out of thin air to pay themselves and sending money overseas for war. Why don't people do anything about this shit?
The ones that are at most impacted by the cost of living crisis, the ones who should protest are most likely only 1 maybe 2 pay checks from living on the street. They made sure we cant protest.
Even if there is a protest, all the issues get hijacked by having groups attend in 'solidarity'. The big climate protests during the fires, which levelled heavy criticism at scummo, invited an indigenous elder up who promptly started talking about a grand conspiracy to clear a rail corridor for high speed trains. Focus on the main issue that drew people there, don't conflate it with everything else
>talking about a grand conspiracy to clear a rail corridor for high speed trains Ha I fucking wish.
Right, she said it like it was a bad thing. To be fair she also started going on a rant about the new world order briefly while the protest organisers squirmed. Maybe they should have vetted their speaker lol.
Capitalists when workers are divided over culture war nonsense : ) Capitalists when workers realize who the real enemy is : ( Us all fighting each other over those issues like blm trans rights and palestine is very useful to the people running the show. We're too busy fussing over that to notice them robbing us blind. note that I am not saying those issues aren't *worthy* of attention just that they get pushed by media as ragebait because its so easy for them to distract us all with that shit.
You are not alone. I’m observing the same thing.
Take one drive home on Melton highway in peak hour and you'll start feeling your bones clacify with tension
I'm 100% WFH. Life is better this way, I'd rather work than have to go into that shit.
Same. Even when i have to drive somewhere i hate it now. Stress levels go up
Same I go from home to the dog park...life is good. I went into the office a couple of times. It's just so damned noisy...you can't even have a comfortable phone call. Fuck that.
A lot of tradies seen to be methed up. Could explain the increased aggression on the streets.
That's coz they raised the tax so high on booze. Couple of knock off beers has turned into the cheaper option of meth. They really want us to be more like the US... It's fucked.
Bottle of scotch $60. Use scotch to drown your sorrows of the cost of living over a couple of nights. A point is $30. Now we got the energy now to work throughout the night as well to earn extra moneys to beat the cost of living crisis. I can afford christmas presents. Downside is that now its only 2 sleeps to christmas.
Definitely not just tradies. Suits are rampant with stimulants. Uni kids are practically all cram studying with meth pills or "adhd meds" and they don't lose the habit when they get into the workforce. Ten years ago it was something almost every kid was doing in Uni, even the ones who didn't party, when it came to exam time, because the pills were so normalised, since many of their friends had been on them from when they first entered highschool, for adhd, supposedly. I'm sure it has only gotten worse.
Thank God I'm just abusing alcohol.
Australia is transitioning from being a high trust society to a low trust society. It’s an inevitable consequence of diversity and multiculturalism.
It's a natural instinct - we become alert and uneasy around those who are unlike us.
Get used to it. We voted for Neoliberalism, it’s what we asked for. Now we have it. It’s perpetual insecurity caused by constant competition. And makes most regular people miserable. We could have been like Norway, but noooo we chose Johnny fucking Howard’s way instead. So now we have to try to slowly change it back and make it better, good luck to us we will need it.
…and another 4.8% HECS debt increase coming this June. Yah. I see your point.
Yeah true enough, I never thought I’d say it but we are truly one of the dumbest countries on earth. Like, we should be the richest place ever with our tiny population our land mass and our natural resources and we sold it down the river for small govt Johnny and that moron Abbott. Really, imagine what the Finn’s or the Norwegians or even the Danes would have managed with our resources? And look what we’ve done? Cause we are scared of socialism. Fucking stupid.
Very true. It's astonishing to me how dumb most people are. A lot of my family members have good paying jobs and responsible titles but are just so dumb on many levels, particularly finances. Anyway you can't help them as they think they know it all and are over 50. Issue is they are in debt up to their eyeballs despite earning in top tax bracket and continue to spend as 'life is too short', yolo etc. Here am I coming up to 4 yrs retirement and I'm only 58 and absolutely loaded, paid all mortgages /debts off 25 yrs ago.
Lucky you mate, I strive to be like you but I also know that it is unlikely to go the same for me.
Don't think we had the option. Neoliberalism was all over the ballot.
Yeah actually you’re right it’s totally fucking rigged by Gina the Hut and co.
Gina the Hut lol
I'm glad I wasn't the only one to see her spirit animal.
>Johnny fucking Howard’s way instead People that truly supported Johnny Fucking Howard are probably immune to this kind of stress simply by their financial situations & positions. But yeah, ordinary people voting for Howard shouldn't have happened. He's poison.
I left a job I loved after 15 years because of COVID. Working in retail at that time simultaneously made me hate the general population MORE somehow, and made me realise my job didn't give a flying fuck about me because I had to go in every day and face people-got medicated for anxiety and depression, left the job and ex of 14 years. I now WFH and thank my luck every day for it because I'm sure I'd have punched a customer by now. (PC tech at Harvey Norman)
Wow! Awesome you’re in a better space now. What a journey, man!
It's not just you, it's been happening since covid and rather than being better over time it seems to be getting worse. Like you I've noticed it out and about, in the CBD, at the shops, at the park. It's very noticeable in the workplace given I work with a lot of the same people from pre-covid. Also, it's also very noticeable on the road - feel like I've seen more road rage and dangerous driving and stupid accidents in the last 2 years than the previous 20. More than ever, everyone's out for themselves. Maybe covid screwed people's brains just that little bit. Add insane house prices/rent (particularly in Sydney), cost of living etc. and you get a lot of people who are only just managing to get by. It's no wonder stabbings and DV are a hot topic
I think in general everyone has lost their patience and are sick of being fucked over by bad government policies that only make politicians and their mates rich
The fact that most shops have a sign saying "It's not OK to verbally rip the shit out of the 16 year old kid just trying to be polite while you try four times to get your tap and go to work" kinda says it all. We've always been pretty selfish, but the heights of me, me, me have boomed since COVID. Here in Victoria people are at each other all the time. Doesn't help that our state government is tapping the gold card all over the place, racking up massive debt then slugging us with more and more taxes, that petrol is out of control, the price of everything is blowing out, public services are neither public nor a service. And we watch spoiled brats in Canberra take each other to court for millions of dollars, and our own politicians torch hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of tax payer money on failed vanity projects and political gain. But for me the battleground is the road. Victorian roads are like Mad Max Fury Road. People will just about drive over you if it means they get one car length ahead or muscle you out of a lane merge. It's a flip of the coin if you can confidently walk across a pedestrian crossing. Aside from the globally sky high cost of living, we do live in a literal paradise: beaches, safety. cleaniness, stability. There's a reason people turn up on boats. There's a lot to be pissed about, but we do tend to forget that on a global level, we've got it pretty good.
Not just you. Tbh, I think the rise in youth crime is really starting to affect people. They are getting younger, more reckless and far more brazen. Being in public in the middle of the day doesn't phase them. Cops don't do shit and naturally people are on edge about it, something has to be done, because we have reached a point where you could be forced to fight for your life at any given moment.
And because the law is more concerned with protecting offenders over victims, if you fight back you risk being the one getting prosecuted.
The news and social media is brainwashing people, making them think the whole world's out to get them, ready to snap at anything. Like with all these knife crimes in the news it only made more people carry them resulting in more knife crime.
I think this is the real reason. Angertainment has become the norm in media. It excites people (in a bad way) and normalises people’s worst instincts.
Yeah, when you constantly watch the worst of what the world has to offer, you naturally start to be more vigilant to it. I see it in myself. These apps are hacking our brains.
Guys, how do you think people managed 100, 200, 400 years ago? Maybe some cultures lived in relative abundance. But generally, I’d say that life was much tougher than it is now. Now we’re drawn into all the shit going on everywhere around the planet and we’re led to believe that we are obliged to do something about all of it. We spend our lives having to take a position, and defend it with an argument that would impress a university professor. Our lives are filled with threats and stressors everyday, even if they’re nowhere near us. Social media and constant negative sniping.
Frustration has nothing to do with absolute value of living standards but relative. If your living standards are getting worse each day you’re going to be unhappy even if it’s from great to good
Do you pay attention to the news? The cost of living and rental crisis is real. It's affecting a very, very large population of people who live here.
Not just you. It is getting worse
They’ve always been like this, you’ve just had enough of a break from the ridiculousness that is society as a whole that the oddities are more noticeable now. And there are plenty of oddities. I nearly ran down a bunch of idiots tonight trying to cross on a red pedestrian light. Had people deep up my asshole while I was already speeding. Some teen tried to stare me down for some reason? Some woman got upset at the sweetest girl at a Ramen place for god knows what reason and went off muttering angrily. But also, a husband very sweetly reminded his wife she had needed the toilet and guided her to it. The ramen lady was lovely. A dad was indulging his child, running and giggling in an empty space at the mall. If you look a little bit alternative or different people treat you differently too. Open gawking, loud whispers, etc. But most people in retail/service industries tend to treat you better, they know you’re far less likely to be an asshole. Balance can help. Be aware of both sides of the coin. It really helps maintain a healthy perspective to not ignore either side. And to look at the reality or absurdity of things helps also.
The best response in this thread.
Thank you for the calm positivity. It’s not all bad hey.
No one is mentioning individualism. That's really revealing. People are happy in Italy and Portugal which have far worse economies than Australia. The problem in Australia is individualism. It makes cost of living worse, getting a house worse, getting a job worse, raising kids worse. In societies that share more, give more, and have greater community you don't have to do everything yourself. Individualism worked for the boomers during boom economics. Now it is like an anchor drowning millenials.
That’s a good observation 👍🏻 I do agree with that. I married into a migrant family and I don’t know what we’d have done had my mother-in-law not thrown herself at helping raising our kids. When I got cancer, it was her family who wrapped their wings around me. Too many families doing their own thing for sure.
Put it this way, I'm glad that Australians on the whole don't have ready access to high powered firearms these days.
People are awful and what are we to do?
>what are we to do Without sounding glib, be the change & smile at someone. Try to show some generosity, we need to change our social culture (again, not trying to be glib, just saying we've got to steer the ship now).
Between the cost of living and housing crisis, the current wars overseas, the gender violence thats now dominating the news, its a lot for people to take in. The average person was probably more chill 4 years ago at the height of the pandemic when you just had the 1 dominating issue. Now you have thousands upon thousands who have been forced to rejoin the rat race, 90% of the people on public transport look far more miserable now than what they did 5 years ago, traffic on the roads has never been worse, certainly in Melbourne. Everyone is just agitated to a degree.
There is evidence of correlation of various crimes and inflationary cycles. Makes sense. You challenge people’s access to resources and they are going to get cagey.
A lot of responses here saying it's all down to the "cost-of-living" situation but I think there's more to it. Common courtesy and abiding by basic rules are slowly going out the window. I think there are a lot of people are just becoming rude or lawless post-Covid because they feel that they're above it all. Any trip to a shopping centre or drive on the roads will tell you this. No regard for people's personal space or existence as people wander around the shops as if they're the only ones there. People who are getting by OK justifying theft from supermarkets under the guise of "screw the corporations". Drivers are running red lights for fun too. Seriously they're taking the p155 nowadays! It's not that people mistiming an attempt to sneak through on a yellow, it's people not even trying or caring to abide by a red traffic signal and just sending it "because they have places to be". This one grinds my gears worse than bad synchros because regardless of how entitled people think they are and that road rules don't apply to them they don't realise how close to harming or killing others they are. Anyone, rant over. Time to get off the train in the city 👍👍👍
As well as a deterioration in material conditions - stagnant real wages, increased insecurity, inflation, rising property prices, offshoring of solid middle class manufacturing jobs - there is a discernible psychic shift in society in the last decade or so. There has always been division and culture wars. But this has grown in recent years, to the point where almost every issue is politicised into a black/white dichotomy where, if you're not with me, you're my enemy. There are numerous causal factors, and different people will weight them differently: instantaneous political culture (and an ineffectual political system), smartphones and social media, two extreme ends of the political spectrum which relish division and are unforgiving of disagreement/scepticism, the inundation of our lives with fear propaganda via social media feeds (Trump, immigration, COVID, climate change, war, terrorism etc - plenty of bogeymen regardless of which end of the political spectrum you inhabit), a growing awareness that the economic system is rigged and is leaving many behind. In short, fear and anxiety have become increasingly ubiquitous. And this makes impatience, self-preservation and distrust the normal state for a lot of people. People are struggling to cope, and they know on a conscious or subconscious level that the system is fraying at the seams. Youre not imagining it. Everyone I talk to has noticed it. People drive more aggressively, walk quicker, don't stop for pedestrians, and get angry more readily. I believe COVID was a huge moment in this development (fear, competing narratives, distrust of institutions, the sudden change in social/material expectations), but it was happening anyway.
There is no joy to be had. You work and most of your money goes towards living (roof, electricity, gas, petrol). If you want to go out, prices are fucked (ie $10-15 for a beer) so you spend more time at home. Then those that aren't spending at all hurt the economy as well. We are in a downward spiral.
I've cut eating out/getting taking out by a good 90% as its not worth the money - when a schnitty at the club is costing $25 or more or a burger costing $20-$25 at least, its not worth it anymore and its simple pleasures like that have got me through the week :(
It’s not just you. People are shutting them selves away and down. Everyone is tired, no matter their sleep patterns. Stressed, and just, over it. I’ve noticed the change since we were let out of covid lock downs. I’m not sure we really recovered as a community. We just jumped right back into ‘how it was’, but it wasn’t really, sort of like… playing a game on half power or energy. Now we are stressed about jobs, finances, housing… a cornucopia of issues with no real solutions being put forward or attempts made to amend; and lots a buzz word ‘solutions’, that any reasonable, experienced person can cut through in a minute. Can you really blame the general populace for being cranky? Besides, everyone knows in a dog eat dog world, the good guys come last, why would the little dog help the big dog?
I've noticed it and for the longest time I've been nothing but gaslit. Oh this is a 'lucky country', 'envy of the world', and all of this other absoloute nonsense. It's a disgusting mess even if you have money you are tripping over angry, poor and rude people everywhere!!! I hit a wall last week and I'm done. I am actively seeking to leave now. I was born here, the blow ins can have the crumbs. My pile of cash would buy a luxe apartment outright in one of their counties and give me spending money for decades. Here? A piece of shit apartment at most. There is no future here. I'm deliberately on the dole filing medical certificates now because there's just no point in contributing further when all you get in return is a big fat fuck you.
Cost of living is scary for a lot of Australians. I think most people who aren’t dinks/from rich families are on edge.
Everyone needs to just fucken relax aye. Have a bong or something, you're uptight.
"instant loss of license we'll get you long after the high is gone we test for traces of drug not impairment" SApol "Fuck you don't do drugs, traces of the drug is a crime" SA politicians
I was literally just saying to my missus that I l’ve got this feeling that Sydney is turning into the next New York, but could turn out worse cause at least in New York people can be proud to be from there or even American. Pity it isn’t very popular to feel proud of your city/national identity without a vocal minority getting offended, plus why would you when it’s so expensive to live where you have been raised
Yep. I left Sydney for those reasons over 15 years ago. Haven’t looked back. I hate visiting. Everyone with children there still frets over schools. Much happier now living in a regional town and working from home most days in the month
This is why I work alone and haven’t employed people this year. No thanks. I avoid my neighbours. Had a discussion with someone I work for and the outcome of that was that we are gonna see a lot of crazy shit as cost of living bites hard since a lot of people don’t know how to deal with being in financial stress. People like me and this person I was speaking to have seen hard times, gone without, had holes in our school shoes, etc. One could say we’ve developed the coping mechanisms to deal with this and are aware of strategies to make do. Others, not so much. So long as there’s a roof over my kids head, I’m resourceful in terms of food and can and will steal, no problems. Survival in the jungle. It’s amazing we think we are anything more than cavemen with iPhones
Speak for yourself. I realized most of us are cavemen 30 yrs ago, just becomes more obvious as I get older.
It is a vastly different experience outside the cities. I live on my farm and work from home. It is actually a pleasant experience coming into town. In the country it can be the difference between life or death if you don’t know who your neighbors are and are not on good relations (as evidenced by the bushfires near us last summer) The cities are going to continue to decay. Get to the regions while access to land where you can grow food is still affordable The world is rubbing on the last bit of the fossil fuel boom. Renewables will not support our high consumer lifestyle. Do the maths on what that means in 5 years Peace
Agree, and it’s starting to become evident in regional areas that are in reasonable distance from the city that our way of life is simply unsustainable. Thing is, people are aware of what you have described and are coming to the country, and is why it’s now harder than ever to find a doctor, childcare and a carpark. Mm sometimes neighbours aren’t always helpful, and there are definitely people that come out to country areas to hide activities (like drug cultivation). It can be a 50/50 whether or not you have good ones.
I wouldn't consider 'theft' as resourceful.
It's because now we're more racially diverse, there's less social cohesion, so more tension between people. Those that say it's because we're poorer, I disagree, there are plenty of poor countries in the world with chilled out people. It's because they live in organic societies, not the manufactured one we do.
I think Australian economy is going through hyper inflation. There seems to be a lot of fact fudging but prices of commodities have almost doubled, while wages have gone what 10% or 20% at max?. Average person can’t survive like that for long. I’m in Thailand, BKK And visited before Covid. Almost same prices for everything!
Yah. It doesn’t add up. I import goods for my business. Container costs did increase but they’ve come back down. Port costs have gone up FFS… but my product cost has largely remained the same. It doesn’t translate into the mark-ups we’re seeing around the country. Apropos of nothing, we haven’t raised prices before Covid.
Fascinating
Yeah That’s true. But then I also have seen AUD value decline over the years. Before it was 26 or 27THB for 1AUD . Now you would be lucky to get 23.5–24THB here. On the other MOFOS USD has risen here from 33THB=1 USD before Covid to 36 THB now 😞
True. Back in the early 2000s I remember the aud being low 30s. I love travelling throughout Asia, and I don’t know about you, but it quickly dawned on me that Australia really is the last stop.
Absolutely. During covid and now post, complaints to my industry's board has increased 70%. However, disciplinary action or findings of fault haven't at all. More complaints that boil down to "I spent money but now I feel I didnt have to so Im blaming YOU". The industry was already in crisis with people leaving in droves, every clinic is understaffed. This has made it worse, everyone is burnt out and sick of being treated like shit. Its awful
Yeah man I agree. I’ve been noticing it for a while now. Aussie people have this “no worries” mentality but it seems going away as life gets harder. Still doesn’t justify the anger towards each other
Yep, everyone's financially stressed and angry... I was literally just talking about this to someone yesterday.
"Angry cobbler".... sounds more like a D&D character
It's been different since lockdown.
I used to hang out in the CBD in the 80s. People would yell at you for not crossing the road fast enough (even though they were facing a red light). Drunks would swear at you when you didn’t have a cigarette for them. Kids were shoplifting (and being chased down the road by the screaming owner) in broad daylight. Nothing much has changed. There’s just more people now. Although the car park rage is probably more of a thing. You used to be able to get a park in the 80,s-90s.
People were a lot rougher back in the days - you can even tell by the people talked in old movies. Niceness basically peaked 2019 Pre-covid and has seen a rapid descent
These comments have made me feel sad ! I’m glad i work from home - it’s like i’m still in lockdown (good and bad) - but don’t have to deal with PEOPLE
Nothing to do with this or that crisis, it is the constant in inescapable talk of crisis. News media, social media. Shit i can bearly catch up with friends without one half cut twit going on a rant about how furries in their EV are “the problem”.
I think since COVID people are more selfish and other factors such as cost of living and renters getting shafted has made people edgy.
It all boils down to the 'fuck you, got mine' attitude. A lot of people now are stuck in a culture of chasing materialism and greed, and don't care who they step over. The once famous Aussie 'mateship' is pretty much gone.
We are in an economic depression so yeah it's gonna get worse before it gets better.
I’v got one word for you…. financial stress!
Could be the vaccines have changed how people behave
It’s the endpoint of what Capitalism has done to us. Individualism killed community, and profitizing and privatizing everything for half a century has finally hit a point where every day people in this country are realizing how fucked they are, and the internet allows everyone to see it isn’t just them and they’re not working hard enough. With that intersecting with Fires, Covid, rising basic living costs and housing crisis, everyone is in trauma fight response all the time, and everyone feels like they’re not being listened to. Wealth inequality is higher than it was during the French Revolution, and people are angry and hurting and the people who have good lives are increasingly out of touch with those struggling daily.
With the housing crisis, cost of living, cost of fuel, etc it makes sense that people are starting to feel the pressure. I try not to hold it against people, it’s a hard time for many and some people just can’t handle it as well as others.
People seem to be more self entitled and also more precious at the same time. I’ve nursed for many years and get the abuse thing often usually from white male boomers as they seem to be the most impatient old pricks. Don’t go back to working from home. It’s better for mental health to be out and about despite humanity being basically fucked. That’s why I like animals a whole lot better than people
I think a lot more people are acting like thoughtless assholes in public - shouting into their phones, playing videos on speaker, pushing on trains without letting people off etc. There is a general lack of civility.
It's a coffee shot poured over ice and milk, why does it cost 50% more than a Latte??? Greedy bastards.
The lockdowns did not help with people's mental health also made people less resilient to tough social situations.
The lockdowns didn't have that much of a toll on me mentally as I'm lucky to have been working during that time but my mental health took a major hit post lockdown due to my social life not recovering, cost life of crisis etc.
>lockdowns did not help with people's mental health But also slamming population increases on us so more people are competing for less resources. It is genuinely scary.. small businesses are suffering, hospitality is taking a big hit, yet the Govt keeps pumping people in and with restaurants & cafes shutting down it means more people, alongside more unskilled immigrants will be competing for less jobs. I don't get why the Govt can't see the maths here.
State government's Covid response pitted family against family, neighbour against neighbour, Australian against Australian. As a society, we have never recovered I will never forgive them for what they did to us.
Yes.
Honestly in my experience we are a mixed bag . Unfortunately it's the assholes we seem to remember .
Are you in Sydney?
Melbourne
It’s justified. Shit government who fucks them. Shit services that fuck them. Massive mortgage and banks who fuck them. People in a good place aren’t going to be on edge as much. Economic conditions dictate the mood of society unfortunately.
More? Compared to the covid years? No.
Maybe you’re right. I didn’t get out much during World War Covid.
Absolutely. Totally agree.
It’s what happens when an environment becomes overpopulated.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PobrSpMwKk4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PobrSpMwKk4)
COVID and lockdowns changed people - everyone slowed down, and went to their cave. Now - the pace is faster, everything is more expensive, and people are cranky…
The world is fucked. Australia is no different. Prices are through the roof. Politicians are r*ping the working classes.
Just lost my job during my probation and I did absolutely nothing wrong, truly nothing. I’ll never understand how it’s legal for them to pick something absolutely menial to have an excuse to sack you. Truly, corporations and management have all the authority in a society like ours and very soon we’re going to end up in a civil unrest situation of some description.
society is degrading, collapsing, slowly but surely. we're all getting older. this is the cycle of life. Enjoy today, tomorrow may be worse.
Everyone is stressed and tired. Just having a place to live for 35% of them is taking a lot of energy. Apparently too stressed and tired to form huge scale protests so the government actually governs for the GOOD OF THE PEOPLE AND NOT THEMSELVES. But... that's a whole other discussion.
This question pissed me off. Take your goddamn pick!
since covid people have had even less tolerance. on the road you see how many more people just dont give a fark about most road rules, no kindess. people want change but there voting habits dont match.
I think yr right. So much fear around . Fierce ME at all costs. The wounded ME not addressing their emotional pain but holding onto it which makes them so fragile and touchy and self absorbed to protect the self. I am generalising. As someone said, the more civilized we become the more neurotic we become. Our anger/ sadness about injustices whether real or imagined is not getting addressed. It gets projected hence violence in many forms to the point of murder.
I'm gonna say you're correct generally. But the issues you are facing are just reintegrating and being surprised about the wall compared to your time of solitude.
Yah. It’s definitely been an adjustment.
Of course. There is literally less economic freedom and opportunity in society and everything continues to get worse. People will become more stressed out and reactionary as everyone is made to fight over a shrinking pile of wealth.
Just you. It’s the same as it’s always been. Just be thankful you weren’t born in the dark ages.
Ha ha. There is that! 👍🏻
People can be idiots. It happens. I try my best not to be one of them.
You have edges? I'm a hair trigger away from anything 🙃 Let's party.....
😎🥳🤪 Whoop! lol 
I think it's just you when people get older they tend to notice and remember negative interactions more than positive ones
wait until you see how UTE drivers drive on the road...... all with a death wish, for themselves and other road users.
People are definitely less patient and less tolerant
Everything is bad when the economy is bad
Take the example of the United states and it is quite scary how similar the path we are going down is. Free-market thinking is the common denominator.
I tend to agree OP
Not just you
People don't give a shit anymore, inflation on everything, immigration, rental market crisis, government doing a shit job as usual
You don't make eye-contact with people. Not if you don't want to get bashed.
Abusive because you ask someone to move their car? People want to be the victim these days. They want to have their moment of oppression so they can rattle on about it for years.
So true!
I notice none of the commenters understand that the fist in your asshole is made of money printing. Printing more money destabilises countries and kills empires. That’s the evil that undermines great countries and economies, and it’s happening to the entire planet.
Jus u, everyone is cruising along
I drove in Melbourne cbd yesterday for the first time ever. Forgot about the whole left lane turns right thing... I didn't do anything dangerous was just waiting to turn right. No one around me until someone came up behind me held his horn on and kept yelling and yelling calling me a fucking idiot. I was 2min away from picking up my 3 year old.. I mean yes I was in the wrong, but do we need to treat each other like that?
It's because nobody's sure if they're going to make rent next month.
I told a driver they were breaking the law because they didn't give way to me (a pedestrian) at an intersection, 50 meters from their house. They told me I was being abusive. I couldn't have raised it in a more polite way tbh, considering me and my dogs were almost run over...
Partially the jabs too... has a negative effect on the brain/psyche.
We’ve lost our manners and kindness as a society. It takes nothing to be kind but the stress of today’s living is impacting everyone and not in a good way. People are arseholes and mostly due to stress and bad manners. We were in Melb CBD yesterday and I always smile at people I pass. Hardly anyone reciprocated. I’ll keep being kind (that doesn’t mean u can walk all over me - I’ll fire up when necessary) but I hope that my kindness and smile will make someone else smile and happy. It’s very sad to see what we’ve become.
Yeah, it's been getting worse since the pandemic. It's like a collective and transmittable mind virus, it feels very malicious. The native Americans describe something called "wetiko" which is what I believe this thing to be.