That's true but I think irrelevant. People are posting examples of things that used to be bad and have improved. If you want your science fiction framing, just consider the timeline where those things didn't improve, and you have your answer.
Because so many of us didn't interpret the question properly at first, maybe the question could have been written more clearly, and it wasn't and that's okay, but I hope people looking for answers would be willing to do a little bit of logical reasoning.
Many of us realized that the simplistic labels don't apply. We have views on issues, some of those views are quite clear and others less so, but you can't capture our positions in a few words.
Honestly, you just become more protective of your stuff and things you consider yours as you get older.
Isn't that plainly false? When I was in college, and just after that, I had almost no money, so I was incredibly protective of my stuff and things I considered mine. Later my income went up, so I didn't need to worry about it as much. Surely many other people have had similar experiences.
You're bringing up a good point. People who say we'll become more "conservative" are usually equivocating on the meaning of the word. It's not like we're going to wake up tomorrow and decide that global warming is a hoax, or that we should stop eating cats and dogs. Of course we'll keep doing those things.
I think this is going to be great. Vance can't control himself, and with no one fact checking him, he's going to make up even more ridiculous s***. Just think of all the entertainment we got from the sofas and the cats and dogs. He's just a walking meme machine.
(Yes, the cats and dogs story did lead to violent racist assholes trying to do bad things, but that was caused by Vance, not by us mocking him.)
What if we change your question. What if we ask about asylum seekers? Does that make it any clearer?
If you spend about 20 minutes online, you will find out that many people are fleeing their home countries because they don't want to be killed, forced into slave-like conditions, or forced into occupations such as prostitution. Or they want to prevent that from happening to their children.
If you were to ask people in situations like this what country they'd like to go to, in the abstract, they might not say the United States. But their options are limited. So, what country are you suggesting as an alternative? If someone is starting in El Salvador, to pick a random country in Central America, where do you think they should go?
It's funny because the article claims that the companies failed to spot it. We have no evidence that they failed to spot it. We only have evidence that they failed to take action. So then we left asking the question, if someone did spot it, what would they have done?
It's simply unbelievable that nobody spotted it, so then we're left wondering whether they reported the situation to their supervisors, and why nobody took any action. Bribery seems like a likely possibility. Of course I have no solid evidence. But neither did the author of the article.
There are books written about this exact topic. The most famous in recent years is Factfulness.
I think other people covered the main points, but when I haven't seen mentioned yet here is the fact that, for the news to catch your attention, it has to be something exceptional. That shouldn't be true, but many publishers believe it. They compete to have what's new or different or exciting.
I blame this mostly on the big media companies, and also partly on consumers who believe that consuming news is a passive activity when in reality it's an active choice. They could go find online websites and create their own RSS feed, for example, and then they wouldn't be stuck listening to drivel. But it does take some work and some awareness.
For example, and I don't want to go into details about specific political parties, think about all of the polls about the election. Those are mostly meaningless. We'll find out exactly what public opinion is on Election Day. It's not that you couldn't have a poll, but if you're posting new polling data every day it's because you're desperate to cover up for the fact that you don't have anything new to say.
Challenge presented. Who has courage to accept? We shall see.
Are there books in libraries? Yes, and the publishers don't have to do a thing. And it is good for society. Similarly, can you fix an old car, even if the manufacturer went bankrupt? Of course you can.
We have precedent, my friend.
Patriotism leads to xenophobia, in the medium run with a large population. Xenophobia leads to racism. That's not the same thing as fascism, but fascists are happy enough to take advantage of it.