Its actually quite a bit worse than you think, but to recognize what's happening you have to understand how torture and the developing mind work to some small degree.
Thought reform, which is sophisticated science based techniques that impose stress and increase suggestability, almost to the point of mindlessness,are torture that have been imposed in varying ways to kids and teens. The entire process of centralized education embraces this through Paulo Freire's pedagogy which is most National Teachers Union members; like "Lying to Children", or by-rote teaching (two faces same coin).
When you succumb to torture, you adopt characteristics of the torturer that are reflected. The torturer can distort that reflection for purpose, and in general its a state of involuntary hypnosis. This same state can be induced through distorting reflected appraisal through media. Its not the type of torture you see caracicaturized in media. It leverages perceptual blindspots to induce psychological instability.
When the girls are taught that attractive qualities in men are unattractive or crazy, and the guys are taught the same thing; there is an age range where those core identity beliefs are adopted and crystallized to carry forward the rest of their lives. It takes great personal suffering to overcome any of these, let alone recognize them.
The behavior promoted is almost and mimics similar behaviors or mannerisms that occur in schizophrenics, and is one sign that a person may have been tortured. In addition to what you mention, this has been occuring for decades, and the economic consequences have only gotten worse, and the environment has only ever marched toward disadvantaged.
The world created by the aggregate of older adults today is a hellscape for their children, but most of these slothful (complacent) people have willfully blinded themselves to the reality of their actions.
For example dating websites where you are never matched up to someone that is long-term compatible, effectively being pigeonholed into a eugenics experiment since the strategy the company uses to guarantee profit is the same strategy the USDA uses to eradicate parasites through sterility.
Whenever these type of dynamics occur, chaos sustainably grows until the systems involved can no longer correct, as a positive feedback system. All the way to catastrophe.
Aside from food security, when you make social life unlivable and intolerable. When you deprive children who become adults, of lifes joy through conditioned indoctrination and torture. You have as a group stolen their future. The ones that did nothing are equally responsible as the ones that moved it towards that state.
There is a critical point where they will realize what has been done to them, because you can't fool everyone always. When that occurs, the law won't save the old. Absent a functioning rule of law (which we don't have), violence will be the only option to these people, and they will have nothing to lose.
Chickens come home to roost eventually. Evil doesn't need to know its evil to be evil. All it needs to do is be willfully blind. Thomas Paine said it best when he referred to "Dead Men Ruling."
Books:
Robert Cialdini (1990s) - Influence - Covers perceptual blindspots
Robert Lifton (1950s) - Thought Reform & Totalism - Detailed Case Studies of Torture
Joost Meerloo (1950s) - Rape of the Mind - Covers the broad topic of torture and thought reform; has some dating.
Chase Hughes - Ellipsis - The material in this domain is highly fragmented across many subfields, he aggregates most of the important parts of modern thought reform (1970s+) into NCI, including Cults, Cointelpro, Kubark, and others. Author was a professional military interrogator/behavioral modification expert (iirc).
Torture/Modern Thought Reform is recognized by its Elements, Structuring, and Clustering, and the last group is often addiction linked following lines of Narco-synthesis/analysis through dopamine triggering/conditioning.
Unfortunately, you probably won't see this post long.
HN has a lot of bots, automatons, or despicable people that don't want harsh truths to see the light of day. Almost without fail within 30 minutes of linking to the reference material included, the posts get downvoted to invisibility despite being science backed and true.
Mind you nothing said here changes the reality of the dynamics. It will all happen the same regardless. The hiding is only an action that prevents a general forewarning to others as preparable time ahead of the associated collapse occurring.
There are a lot of people alive today that want to destroy everyone and everything they can.
Ivan Illyin seems to have been right with regards to his refutation of Tolstoy, and outcomes of evil.