Xenophobia drives social movements that enforce hierarchy. And rich people afraid of being less rich will bankroll and support these movements since they’re at the top stratum.

But then pluralistic social movements value equality, law based on principle (rather than loyalty and tribute) and this promotes commerce and culture.

So we have social forces that tug society in their respective directions.

Eventually plutocrats will develop technology that allows then to control and contain the masses, and prevent popular movements from taking hold.

Or, eventually we’ll make the plutocratic class impossible, and keep tight reign on the political class to keep them from seizing too much power (or using it for narrow interests). One or the other.

Discriminiation has dramatically gone down for many decades. In the 80s, LGBTQ+ people simply didn’t exist in public discourse. If one of them got beat up or even killed for simply existing, it was like it happened on the other side of the world. Things like same-sex marriage weren’t just not possible, it wasn’t even talked about. Calling someone “gay” was a popular insult.

The reason it feels like things are getting worse is because LGBTQ+ people exist now, nobody can ignore that anymore, and everyone has to deal with that. I think most pepole (by far) don’t even care, but a small minority has no idea how to deal with that. And because they are so loud it feels like things are getting worse. But they really aren’t.

It ebbs and flows, mainly with society’s tolerance for allowing bad men to exist as role models (or abandon their families), which of course has its own causes, but mainly stems from a stigma against emotional wellbeing in men.