There is a lot of suffering and misery in the world, with so many people displaced and torn from a community they can call home. When SSRIs were promoted with b

There is a lot of suffering and misery in the world, with so many people displaced and torn from a community they can call home. When SSRIs were promoted with big science on the front cover of Scientific American with every doctor prescribing them, the world was still under that cloud of the Cold War. The world was as doomed then as it is now. This also came with powerlessness and de-industrialisation. Job prospects were fine for the entrepreneur or for those willing to sell their soul, but it was not so easy to find a job where you would be doing positive to the world. At the same time there was a lot to be cheerful about. For example there was the awesome rave scene that really did bring people together rather than atomise society. Progress in tech was also great. So much else. The SSRIs were supposed to just dull down the spectrum of allowed emotion and thought. You could not let the state of the world depress you. Hence take the pills, be normal. But this would also turn down the dial at the other end of the scale, you could not live the time of your life, just go through the motions. Parents could get worried if their teenagers were not taking their pills. They could also call their kids mentally unwell. Yet never have a sensible conversation about how bizarre the world is and why there has to be so much misery. There would also be expectations for the kids to pull themselves up by their bootstraps getting on the housing ladder by working hard and saving up. All of this with no acceptance that times have changed, the population is twice what it was and how property has become a speculative bubble. Put together, it was one generation who had trashed the planet and let thousands of nuclear weapons proliferate telling the younger generation to shut up and take the pills. The whole thing was one of those society wide lies with very dubious science, even if they used big words for it to make it sound legit in Scientific American.