I believe humanity has reached what Neitzsche warned us about. The mass numbing of our competitive, individualistic spirit.
At the time he said alcohol and christianity would do it, but perhaps to his surprise the most numbed out of them all, gen z, are largely atheistic.
So what's happened? Why has this worldwide numbing of our souls shifted from a religious foundation to something more political or perhaps, philosophical?
Ironically, the philosophical underpinnings of socialism bears some resemblance to christianity. Self sacrifice for the good of the masses. The denial of human drives deemed "selfish". Add to that the irony that most socialist nations eventually ban religion.
Additionally this socialist idealism has fused with subjectivist postmodern philosophy and there has been an effort to portray christianity as bigoted, restrictive, and archaic.... by the same people promoting this postmodernist socialist philosophy that's just as bad.
This has resulted in a mass exodus from one thing that may numb the soul to something even worse. If Neitzsche thought christianity and alcohol was bad, he'd be shocked by today's issues.
Also as predicted, this abolition of religion has left a moral gap that the gen z atheist generation has found.... difficulties in filling, to say the least.
It seems like many of them have a lack of direction or sense of self. They're just copies of everybody else. They simply don't care about much. There isn't much ambition or intellectual curiousity going on, just numbness.
I think people are self aware of this too, as they regularly degrade themselves albeit "humorously" referring to oneself as "trash" or "worthless". It's almost like a subconscious inside joke between those whose souls are numb, subtly mocking their affliction despite total ignorance of the source.
I think it's reached critical mass and even if you aren't like that, you're likely to be effected by living in a world rife with this mode of existence; a drab, complacent, and ignorant one. You may feel surrounded by "NPCs", as some put it.
If mankind doesn't break out of this fugue state, they're going to take it to the grave as authoritarianism wipes out the last remnants of our individual spirit or the earth opens up and sucks us in, appalled by its own impotent inhabitants.
We have gone gentle into that good night, and I'm seeing little signs we're changing course