I’m really worried about the state of the US despite being a white male who was I’ll coast right through it. I’ll also accept “I don’t” and “very poorly” as answers
By realizing that it IS getting better. We live in a world now where information has exploded out of control. What this means is that we now know exactly what’s going on everywhere, and it turns out that’s a lot of shit.
That shit was still happening, but until fairly recently it was just out of the picture. The average person didn’t know about any of it , couldn’t do anything about it anyway, and thus it didn’t really impact them.
Fast forward to today you hear of tragedies ALL THE TIME. Bad shit happening to good people for seemingly no reason. The difference here is that you just happen to know about it. The objective truth is that bad shit happens less today than it did at any other time in history. We just see every instance of it, not just our local community instances.
When all the bad information from the news begins to bombard me, I think back to March 2020, when the pandemic hit full swing. That might seem odd to some because many would argue that was the spark that set of the series of events that got us here. However what I see now, years later, with a bit of perspective, it was an amazing time. For the first time in human civilization almost our entire species focused in on one task and overall succeed. An existential threat to our entire way of life emerged, most people got on board and we avoided the absolute worst.
We’re not meant to process all the bad things that happen in the world every day. Our primate brains are meant for small communities, not international events. Perhaps the pandemic isn’t OPs thing or yours to think about, but I’ll bet that almost everyone has some memory that gives them hope. Think about it, hold into it. A hopeful thing happened once, it’ll happen again.
This is definitely true. A lot of people fucked around during COVID and made aspects of it worse, but they would have probably done that anyway. Overall, we did a very impressive job worldwide in managing the crisis.
If you ever think the world is shit, disconnect. Turn off the news, get off social media, spend a week interacting with your local community only. You’ll see people can be pretty awesome, and you can make a very real impact in the world by helping your local community.
I use to think like that in my 20s. But the truth is right now, it’s definitely not getting better. I teach in college/univ and the amount of ignorance and entitlement I’ve seen in the past couple of years is alarming. Elon Musk and Andrew Tates are the role models for many young men now, there is a masculinity crisis and it’s affecting everyone.
If you consider serious, global issues with empirical data, such as disease, poverty, hunger, the world is indeed improving, and has been for a while, see e.g. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-living-in-extreme-poverty-cost-of-basic-needs
I"m aware of that and I do agree some things are getting better. That was exactly my mindset in my 20s. But I believe you could use other data, like wealth repartition, environnement, consumption, media concentration, etc. to demonstate the opposite. The simple fact that we did more damage to the planet in 200 years that we did over 40k years is making me really worry. But yeah, I guess it depends on how you perceive certain things.
I just accept our fate.
Humanity will probably realize we seriously fucked up around 2050 and near the end of the century mass migration will lead to a death count much bigger than WW2 or the chinese civil wars.
The only grace is that most of us reading this thread will die from various reason before the second stage.
I will still do my part by reducing my CO2 footprint but unless we find some miracle technology producing nuclear power plant levels of energy for the cost of a charcoal power plant, shitty world leaders and corporations will ruin everything for fake wealth.
Try this: Don’t Believe The Hype
(DarkMatter2525 - Is Society Collapsing)
TLDW: No, things are getting better, some things aren’t, but it’s not an easy answer because there are 8 billion perspectives to consider. We are living longer and enjoy more technology, so there’s that.
I’ll watch later. I hope it isn’t the same thing as Steven Pinker’s “things are better than ever”.
I’m also going to disagree on the “things make us happier” argument as well. Because if you’re only getting things because they flaunt your wealth, it isn’t making you happier.
I recommended it because … I had just began listening to it then scrolled and saw this post, but also because I admire his critical thinking skills; he could have put out an hour long video of himself running around and screaming over clips of looting and earthquakes while warning us about the apocalypse and which loadout to run…
But he didn’t. He created a criteria to answer the question then looked at available data. He could have gotten 2x more views, too…
Bookmarked for later watching
I avoid the news, if it’s important one of my friends or family will tell me. Also, if something is going on but isn’t actionable (I can’t do anything about it) I try not to let it occupy much of my headspace.
Also, if something is going on but isn’t actionable (I can’t do anything about it) I try not to let it occupy much of my headspace.
That’s probably the healthier approach.
Exactly. Do what you can when you can. Everyone needs a hand sometimes. Be that for the people around you. Even if you can’t agree on everything.
Your perspective is distorted, things are incredible and getting better by most metrics.
- The average person today lives better than kings of old.
- We have abundant water, food, and sanitation. In America, food is so subsidized that it is ridiculously cheap by historical standards.
- Your odds of dying to violence or disease have never been lower in all of human history.
- You have all human knowledge at your fingertips, and technology is expected to keep improving our lives in novel ways.
- You can visit any place on Earth in a matter of hours and have access to cheap exotic foreign goods.
- Civil rights are protected a lot more today than they were in many/most civilizations of the past.
- Entertainment is abundant and cheap, and takes forms that people of the past could only dream about.
While we certainly have our challenges to overcome, like climate change, wealth inequality, and social problems, let’s not forget how good we have it.
Facts
Preach
This is a great outlook. It’s important to not lose sight of the problems that do exist and try to work towards solving them, yes. But don’t lose sight of the positives, either.
My answer to the question asked would likely be, I’ve been depressed my whole life, what’s another problem. Lol
But we do have to recognize that in spite of all of the bad we can list, there’s a lot of good as well.
get into areas like solarpunk that hold out hope against the dystopia
Solarpunk is amazing
say more words about it
Or you could just google it?
100% true. Or i could offer an interested audience to someone that seems passionate about the subject.
Stoicism, move somewhere else, get active, make the small world around you better and stop reading national/world news.
Being the history nerd I am, I tell myself that this has happened before. Think of the Bronze Age Collapse or the Fall of Rome. For people who lived back then, it probably felt like the end of the world. But after many generations, they still managed to rebuild. I must keep going in order to document as much history as possible for future generations in the case that humanity survives all this crazy shit that is going on.
We still don’t really know what caused the Bronze Age Collapse, just that it happened and that we survived it, though it took several centuries to rebuild. The Fall of Rome happened so slowly that it was nearly invisible. Hell, there are still a few countries out there claiming the “Emporer” title and all are valid successors of the title.
This thing that is happening now is different. We know what’s causing it. We know how to stop it, we’re just not. And it’s coming at us. Super fast. Who knows if we will survive this?
Depends on perspective. Ask my grandma who lives through the second world war whether it is better or worse. Our modern problem seem trivial to her comparing having no non-bombed house, very little food and very little way of taking care of her family.
Yeah take the long view and realize 100 years ago TB would be a major cause of death, prohibition would be in full force and the Mob would be powerful, we’d be 5 years post-WWI, 6 years from the Great Depression, and 16 years from WWII.
Reminds me of that Doctor Who christmas special with the soldier. “Now let’s get you back to your first World War” - “What do you mean, FIRST World War?!?!!” - “Oh. Sorry. Spoilers.”
I chose to leave after Trump got in office—& it took like two years of planning/saving. It’s had real ups & downs but overall the best major life decision I’ve made.
Where did you go? I would like to live elsewhere, but I worry about ending up in an economy where I could no longer afford to travel or retire.
There are a lot of good news all the time. For example: I’m pro veganism and always heard that vegans make up about 2% of the population. Recently I heard that specifically in my city about 8% are vegans. That’s amazing!
I really hope veganism becomes more widely adopted, or at the very least less derided than it is today. Animal agriculture is one of if not the biggest contributor to so many global issues.
Don’t have kids, save for your retirement.
Many people in here arguing things “have never been better”. It’s true to an extent; things are pretty good in terms of poverty, liberties or world peace (for now). It’s not great, it’s never been great, but it’s a decent bit better than it’s been in the past. Overall.
We are, however, in an era of unstability and unrest, where it feels like things are constantly on the cusp of changing for the worse (and in some cases, are indeed already changing for the worse, like abortion or LGBT rights in the US, for example). Violence and discrimination are on the rise, global peace is being threatened, democracy is in jeopardy (not just in the US mind you), the 1% are getting WAY richer way faster than ever… To top it all off, climate change is objectively, unarguably as bad as it’s ever been, and it’s getting much much worse, much faster than even experts can keep up with. Like, we’re headed straight for extinction and we keep accelerating toward it.
You have every right to be worried. Yes, it’s easy to forget and take for granted the things we have now that we didn’t even a mere 60 years ago, but many of them are very much under attack at the moment. Just because shit maybe hasn’t quite yet hit the fan doesn’t mean everything is fine.
And to answer your question, I’ve found some refuge in art, both experiencing and creating it. Reading books, watching movies, playing games, etc, especially those that echo that sentiment of fear and uncertainty for the future (or present). Trying to use all that as inspiration for my own work, I think it’d help to express my feelings this way. I am indeed doing very poorly still though, it’s a lot to deal with, on top of my own personal problems.
LGBT rights in the US
LGBTQ rights in the US are, generally speaking, progressing.
climate change
I don’t think doom and gloom is warranted with climate change. Many countries have long reached peak CO2. The goal now is net zero. Rich nations also need to pony up to help developing nations that haven’t already spewed a ton of CO2 into the air as part of development. Unfortunately, that’s looking to be difficult with internal politics in the rich countries.
Some of the progress at the recent COP18 looks to be possible ground breaking. The methane related agreements in particular could be enormously beneficial. They could decrease the amount of methane released or burned off as part of fossil fuel extraction significantly. Methane has a relatively low half life, so it will cycle out of the atmosphere faster than CO2.
I don’t think doom and gloom is warranted with climate change. Many countries have long reached peak CO2. The goal now is net zero. Rich nations also need to pony up to help developing nations that haven’t already spewed a ton of CO2 into the air as part of development. Unfortunately, that’s looking to be difficult with internal politics in the rich countries.
This is like standing on the deck of the titanic and being like “meh, we have already scraped by most of the iceberg, so we are fine”.
The damage is done, look at global sea surface temperatures they are off the charts. We could stop everything now and things would still be spiraling out of control climate wise and I am sorry but that is just the reality of it :(
Don’t get me wrong, nothing is “fine” when it comes to climate change. There’s a lot of work to do, much of which has a lot of resistance from people with a stake in the status quo towards ruin. But at the same time, this is a situation that can at least be mitigated, with real work in progress. Humanity is not going extinct from climate change.
I believe you probably mean COP28 unless you are talking about one from 10 years ago.
Yes, thank you. I wish they had just numbered it to match the years…
LGBTQ rights in the US are, generally speaking, progressing.
as a trans person in the USA
fuck you, ya ignorant removed
I’m not trans, but I’m gay and I have many trans friends in the LGTBQ+ community who have shared their experiences with me. Maybe lay off the insults?
Also, I’m talking broad strokes of history. Think about how the general public’s attitude towards LGBTQ+ people has changed in the last, say, 50 years (since Stonewall). It’s been a rough road with set backs, but we have the momentum. Young people are already much more LGBTQ+ friendly, and demographics is destiny.
I will lay off some insults, yes. If i hadn’t had experience with you before. Your politics are of a most silly kind.
Maybe in europe, but before your people decided to pillage and plunder the world, real civilizations in Native Americas, China, Oceania, and such had far far more progressive cultures than our own.
GenZ is the most pathetic excuse for a leftist generation. Even Boomers had wayyyyy better communists, America just killed them off.
As a trans person on the ground with trans organizers, we do not have the momentum. People’s support means little without active protection. Politics is actively stripping away our right to exist in every country on the globe. Well besides civilized countries like Cuba, Nigeria, South Africa, and China. The west is heading backward materially. Your “popular support” means nothing if no one has the spine to do something with it.
We got where we are with riots and subversion and rage, not pandering and concessions. Concessions are how we get washed away.
I can cite sources if you want them.
I am not interested with bizarre comparisons with Nigeria. I am focused on one time comparison. On average, are attitudes towards LGBTQ+ people trending positive. Let’s say you were born under similar circumstances, but fifty years earlier. Would your life as a trans woman be better or worse? Would the people around you treat you better or worse? Would the government treat you better or worse?
The DeSantises and the so called Moms for Liberty out there are unfortunately currently having their moment in some quarters. It is frustrating to see ignorance and hatred directed at my trans brethren. But I have seen too much positive movement, both historical and current, to expect that we anywhere but the right direction. History will be the judge of those who got in the way.
I’m not talking to someone who gets regularly temp banned for things like anti-semitism
fuck off
You’re talking about the world news mods who will find any excuse to ban someone who goes again a pro-Russia, pro-CCP, or pro-Hamas narrative? That community barely has rules, it’s just excuses for the mods to pick their preferred propaganda.
So yeah, the USA isn’t the world but if the place you live in is falling apart its understandable to shrink your worldview down to the that which affects you most or that you witness the most often.
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Don’t feel like you have to stare into the abyss all the time. This is just self harm. Its like habitually looking at entries on the old rotten.com website. Nothing good will come of it.
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Do something, anything, that you can do alone. Plant some flowers, pick up trash in the neighborhood, read a manual about combat first aid or small engine repair, pick a country at random as far away from the USA as you can point to on a map and start learning about its history and culture.
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Find somewhere to do something, anything, with other people. Internet book club, see if any local groups/orgs need help feeding the hungry or helping the unhoused, probably some groups not too far away that exist to support one minority group or another that could use some help in research or outreach.
Also, the world is a complicated place with lots of different actors. China is doing some pretty cool and good things. There’s a lot of scary situations that probably will lead to positive change in Africa and South America right now.
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A lot of weed
Same
