Can we agree, this approach to the future seems to be designed to dig for new, and more horrible lows?

So, two things.

One. You make some good points. I agree with you.

Two. I never said it's better now. I was there in the 80s, 90s, graduated in '01. Switched professions, failed to launch a career, started again, lived at home... left North America, came back to the hottest real estate market in the world, still failing to launch a career. I feel you. I'm neck deep with you.

Every thing you've described has been happening since then. It was very bad then. We can't go metric for metric. That's how we lose the forest by counting the trees. We do need to say it was always bad and still getting worse.

I said, above, then was very bad. Possibly, the worst way to end a century and start another. I also localized my comments specify discrete experiences. What you're describing, what you feel now, in MTL; they felt it there, then.

To say the same is happening in more places is, clearly, a worse state of affairs. A spread of a cancer, if you will. I addressed the kernel issue, "another time since WWII where things were this bad." If you've got a water-borne toxin spreading metastatic cancer, it's origins are just as punctuate — and devastating on the affected — as its spread. Poverty, homelessness, conflict, oppression, extortion — these aren't worse now because there's more of it. They've always been bad.

In conclusion, can we agree, the future seems to be designed to dig for new, and more horrible lows? I worry that a focus shift to the new, more horrible lows runs the risk of excusing the upper bounds of this hellscape.