Times are tougher now for kids IMO, from when I went to school (mid 70s to 80s). More drugs in my time but we didn't have the violence and sex on TV and in music like there is now. School shootings were unheard of. We had no internet, music videos, or video games.
Now kids have cops stationed at school, piss tests to get a job, and the worry of wondering if some twit will bring a gun to school and shoot the place up. We used to carry our shotguns in gun racks in our trucks when we parked on school grounds. Everyone carried a pocket knife too. Nowadays the school will call in a SWAT team and lock you away for what we never gave a 2nd thought about.
Our society is going to hell in a hand basket now. And we can thank the media, big government, internet, video games, crack, MTV, taking prayer and spankings out of school, and a million other things for this. And it'll only get worse to the point where we implode from within, just as the Roman Empire did. We're losing our ethical, moral and family values more with each generation. 
Absolutely agree, sir. Who needs the sun to go nova or a giant space rock to knock Earth silly? People will invariably create society's own demise. And the universe will continue. It will happen when we have nothing left to lose.
