I think there’s an intersection of the social media thing and the mental health thing as far as grabbing labels, getting mired in self diagnosis, whatever stuff like that. The attention feedback loop, maybe some reverse star bellied sneetch stuff. For lack of a better term, there started to be some romance and fashion to being tragically broken in a lot of 2000s youth culture. But it’s also good that people who *do* genuinely have mental health struggles are less stigmatized when they speak about it or get help. I’m also skeptical of studies pointing to fewer instances back in the good old days -how are they understanding the majority of cases that people just didn’t talk about?
There’s some incentivization stuff with the kids as well - if your kid is designated as having special needs, the classroom gets an additional helper? I know that that is a thing I’ve heard about in a few cases where parents were being encouraged to get a diagnosis.
lots of talk about how people work in public vs private sectors when really it seems like the important thing about the public sector is its ability to do things for the public benefit. Privatized roads and eliminating public schools would/will be a disaster. Prisons, the military, oversight, etc.