Does anyone else feel overwhelmed by how the world is going this year?
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No, not really. I’m more overwhelmed by the fact I knew very little about the past. I deep dived into couple of things and now wonder the sanity of humanity.
Also the fact that people just do not learn from the past. People rather ignore all the things and repeat it again, again and again.
I have even become more pessimistic about humanity than, I already was. Because of this, I tend to avoid the news a bit more to at least keep my mental health in check.
Im just curious, would you be willing to share what topics sparked your interest?
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This will probably be the calmest year of the years to come.
Russia, the US and EU are failing slowly, with Russia and the US kicking around in the process. The EU doesn't really know what to do except follow suit to the US, no matter the stupidity.
Aside from these three China seems to be emerging for now, but is running into huge demographic issues that the others already have.
Neoliberal Capitalism is destroying the very foundations of society and leading to a new rise of Fascism as it is ideologically way too deeply entrenched to overcome itself and the mantra of eternal growth and eternal capital accumulation at the top.
On top of all this the climate catastrophe is picking up intensity every year and the effects will cause more and more disruption.
Meanwhile any attempts at spearheading a better world, one of sustainable economies and basic human rights are disrupted by the forces of old, who employ ever more gruesome weapons and tools of mass surveillance while refusing any social innovation.
To answer your question: Yes it is overwhelming and it will probably get a lot worse.
Some days I really deeply contemplate just getting a canister of helium and an exit bag.
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I feel like we're living in a Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire song
2.0(Fall Out Boy did a 2.0 version of the song where they used more recent events.) 3.0 and the events in the song are happening at 1.25 times the speed of the original.Honestly: no.
There are only so many things I can focus on at once and I’m quite good at not letting the others affect me.
Work, kids and friends take most of my time. My «crisis» of choice to stay updated on is Ukraine. Everything else I read on now and then, when I feel like it.
I quite enjoy just touching grass and being in the moment instead of stressing about things I have no control over.
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I feel like we're living in a Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire song
2.0(Fall Out Boy did a 2.0 version of the song where they used more recent events.) 3.0 and the events in the song are happening at 1.25 times the speed of the original.anyone that's paying attention is likely in the same place you are
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I feel like we're living in a Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire song
2.0(Fall Out Boy did a 2.0 version of the song where they used more recent events.) 3.0 and the events in the song are happening at 1.25 times the speed of the original.Of course. It’s not the path you want to take. But I’m old enough to remember similar times and the future isn’t written yet.
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Of course. It’s not the path you want to take. But I’m old enough to remember similar times and the future isn’t written yet.
You have many parallel selves that didn't make it. Wonder how many more selves you have left
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I feel like we're living in a Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire song
2.0(Fall Out Boy did a 2.0 version of the song where they used more recent events.) 3.0 and the events in the song are happening at 1.25 times the speed of the original.wrote on last edited by [email protected]I'm upset by many things going on in the world but I'm not overwhelmed because there are no relevant decisions for me to make. Look at it this way: what's the difference between reading a book that says Genghis Khan killed a hundred more people than you thought he did centuries ago and reading a newspaper that says a hundred people died in some catastrophe yesterday? In both cases, you've learned that total strangers died in the past, there was nothing you could have done, and there will be no direct effect on your own life. It's natural to be more upset by the more recent deaths (and I admit that I would be) but I think it isn't logical.
The exception to that is AI. I think I do need to change my own life in order to increase my chance of thriving in an AI-dominated future, at least because if some jobs will still exist then I'll need to be able to do one of them.
(I suppose "Do I flee the country?" is another decision I technically need to consider, but the answer is "No unless things get dramatically worse." Thus there isn't much to think about on a daily basis.)
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You have many parallel selves that didn't make it. Wonder how many more selves you have left
As many as I have days to live.
(Not the OP but an old dude myself ;))
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I feel like we're living in a Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire song
2.0(Fall Out Boy did a 2.0 version of the song where they used more recent events.) 3.0 and the events in the song are happening at 1.25 times the speed of the original.Someone ... or a new artist should just release a new version of the song with new lyrics every year
But to your question ... I'm Indigenous Canadian, so from the day I was born, I've always been overwhelmed by the world because most of it, especially living in northern Ontario was a government that either actively or passively just wanted us to either disappear, assimilate, go away or just die.
I've always seen the world as falling apart. I remind my friends when we debate this stuff that the human species has been around for about two million years, a species that looks like us was around about 100,000 years ago and the most modern ancestor that could think, act and be like us is about 50,000 years ago. We've only just started our technological evolution about 200 years ago. So when you think about it, we are more designed as prehistoric cavemen and cavewomen who are easily scared of shadows in the dark or what happens after we die. We have only just taken our first step out of the cave we all used to inhabit. It's going to take us a few more thousand years to get to the point where our brains can process and live with the modern world we created .... that is if we last that long. In the meantime, we'll just fumble along trying to become temporary Masters of the Universe on our tiny speck of floating dust in the galaxy.
To put things into perspective ... listen to Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot
Or watch the cartoonist Steve Cutts A Brief Disagreement
The thing that is pissing me off these days is not so much that the world is falling apart ... it always has been for me ... its that we are accelerating the amount of danger we are putting all of humanity ... and for what? a little bit of profit and for a small group of people to say they can rule the world?
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As many as I have days to live.
(Not the OP but an old dude myself ;))
May your quantum eraser never run dry
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I feel like we're living in a Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire song
2.0(Fall Out Boy did a 2.0 version of the song where they used more recent events.) 3.0 and the events in the song are happening at 1.25 times the speed of the original.We will be busy entertaining ourselves, dulling our senses and denying what's happening right until the very point of collapse. "No one" will see it coming.
Since there's fuck all you can do about it, might as well join in the festivities.
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This will probably be the calmest year of the years to come.
Russia, the US and EU are failing slowly, with Russia and the US kicking around in the process. The EU doesn't really know what to do except follow suit to the US, no matter the stupidity.
Aside from these three China seems to be emerging for now, but is running into huge demographic issues that the others already have.
Neoliberal Capitalism is destroying the very foundations of society and leading to a new rise of Fascism as it is ideologically way too deeply entrenched to overcome itself and the mantra of eternal growth and eternal capital accumulation at the top.
On top of all this the climate catastrophe is picking up intensity every year and the effects will cause more and more disruption.
Meanwhile any attempts at spearheading a better world, one of sustainable economies and basic human rights are disrupted by the forces of old, who employ ever more gruesome weapons and tools of mass surveillance while refusing any social innovation.
To answer your question: Yes it is overwhelming and it will probably get a lot worse.
Today's tumultuous reality will be the "good old days" of tomorrow.
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You have many parallel selves that didn't make it. Wonder how many more selves you have left
If you really believe in Everett's many worlds, infinity.
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It seems like most humans honestly are not that interested at all in things like history, the value of community, involvement with others, social and emotional support, and are generally just selfish living-perpetually-in-the-moment idiots that willfully ignore the implications of anything they do and endlessly play the victim.
It's honestly a drag to realize how many of our species continue to be backwards knuckle dragging slack-jawed yokels who get positively furious when anyone calls them out on how absolutely fucking stupid they are. How dare you call them stupid and hurt their feelings! It's their right to be a an absolute fucking idiot and you're the one out of line for calling attention to it! They couldn't possibly try to not be a mendacious fucking moron! You're the person who is wrong for noticing!
I think the capacity is there to function at a higher, pro-social level; but it is severely compromised by societal systems that at some point were shaped by scarcity and real world dangers but have just become obsolete and out of control. We're living a traumatic legacy that we can't shake and just keep dumping on successive generations
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I'm upset by many things going on in the world but I'm not overwhelmed because there are no relevant decisions for me to make. Look at it this way: what's the difference between reading a book that says Genghis Khan killed a hundred more people than you thought he did centuries ago and reading a newspaper that says a hundred people died in some catastrophe yesterday? In both cases, you've learned that total strangers died in the past, there was nothing you could have done, and there will be no direct effect on your own life. It's natural to be more upset by the more recent deaths (and I admit that I would be) but I think it isn't logical.
The exception to that is AI. I think I do need to change my own life in order to increase my chance of thriving in an AI-dominated future, at least because if some jobs will still exist then I'll need to be able to do one of them.
(I suppose "Do I flee the country?" is another decision I technically need to consider, but the answer is "No unless things get dramatically worse." Thus there isn't much to think about on a daily basis.)
The exception to that is AI. I think I do need to change my own life in order to increase my chance of thriving in an AI-dominated future, at least because if some jobs will still exist then I’ll need to be able to do one of them.
I work in IT and have for the past 20 years, and I have 20 more to go. I'm preparing my exit and setting my sights elsewhere since it's obvious this little tower is going to crumble in a fairly short amount of time.
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I think the capacity is there to function at a higher, pro-social level; but it is severely compromised by societal systems that at some point were shaped by scarcity and real world dangers but have just become obsolete and out of control. We're living a traumatic legacy that we can't shake and just keep dumping on successive generations
I'd like to believe that, but some people I have met who are not struggling for resources and had kind and loving families are still somehow just some selfish motherfuckers. I don't know where they got that trauma from that made them want to hurt others so badly.
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I feel like we're living in a Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire song
2.0(Fall Out Boy did a 2.0 version of the song where they used more recent events.) 3.0 and the events in the song are happening at 1.25 times the speed of the original. -
I feel like we're living in a Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire song
2.0(Fall Out Boy did a 2.0 version of the song where they used more recent events.) 3.0 and the events in the song are happening at 1.25 times the speed of the original.wrote on last edited by [email protected]I mean as a Canadian, I knew that was coming since early last year if Trump would win. I couldn't know where we would land on the spectrum between nothing changed and Armageddon. What I did know was that, without fail, I would hear what stupid thing Trump did just about every day in the news, and it would be overwhelmingly exhausting.
I have three pieces of advice. First, connect with the people around you offline, reinforce your ground truth. Second is keep your eyes on the ball of what you want to be better in the world so that you can keep going after it. Lastly, don't let right or left wing online propaganda, or the despair from crises the US, Israel, Russia, China or North Korea stir up paralyze you from taking action on those two things.
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I feel like we're living in a Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire song
2.0(Fall Out Boy did a 2.0 version of the song where they used more recent events.) 3.0 and the events in the song are happening at 1.25 times the speed of the original.America invading the Middle East and Israel committing genocide has been the staple my entire life.
World’s going to shit due to climate inaction.
The only change here is Russia and Ukraine, and that’s been ongoing for years now.
I don’t feel overwhelmed, this all feels normal to me.
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I feel like we're living in a Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire song
2.0(Fall Out Boy did a 2.0 version of the song where they used more recent events.) 3.0 and the events in the song are happening at 1.25 times the speed of the original.wrote on last edited by [email protected]I feel like we're living in a [Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire]
I don't understand why you'd say this. The US 100% did start all these fires. Not only did they start them, they keep adding wood to the fire. It's so blatant even a blind person could see.
Billy Joel has great song and I appreciate him as an artist, but I'll he damned if he isn't an imperialist justifier.
