Everything just seems so out of control. The US seems to be tearing itself apart. The world is on fire. We seem to be going backwards when it comes to freedom and human rights. We’ve turned our backs on each other. How do you cope with all this without just giving up?
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Don’t spend all your time reading news, they are purposely negative because it generates more interest and money, don’t take everything you read as truth.
99% of these problems won’t turn into anything other than a faded memory.
End of the day, nothing you can do will change what’s happening half way across the world, so why let it change you?
End of the day, nothing you can do will change what’s happening half way across the world, so why let it change you?
I beg to differ. Here are a few things you can do. I agree these won’t make an impact, but if enough people are willing to do these, it could work:
- Donate money if you can afford it. (Just carefully check where you’re exactly donating to.)
- Promote non-propaganda, factual information. Muscovy spreads disinformation through social media and propaganda websites using their trolls. So why can’t ordinary people step up and upvote, share, publish, and promote factual information? Sure, the algorithms of social media platforms favor the disinformation, but again, if enough people are willing to overcome what’s happening, I believe, it could make a change.
- Promote education. Only stupid people can be influenced by the far right propaganda. Unfortunately there are way too many stupid people.
- Just do what you’re good at. If your profession is irrelevant, that’s fine. But if you happen to be a hacker, or want to become one, go ahead, and fight online scammers and trolls. Are you a software developer? Wanna be a web developer? Create something that has an impact if you have the free time and interest. Make it open source. Encourage others to join. Again, if you have no affinity for this kind of stuff, it’s totally fine.
- Do your research and vote on elections.
In my opinion, this kind of mindset of “you cannot do anything, get used to it” is a very demotivating and harmful piece of advice. Because that’s what’s been going on all this time; everyone being ignorant, while evil people never stop doing what they’re doing.
So why can’t ordinary people step up and upvote, share, publish, and promote factual information?
They can, it just doesn’t work terribly well. Persuading people is not necessarily about actual facts or rationality, even at the best of times, without even involving any strong feelings, or identifying with outcomes, or other interests of conflict.
Facing profit motives, politics, power dynamics, organized propaganda, and bad faith argumentation in general, it’s even more grim. Russia and the other troll farmers are making a concerted specific effort out of this. The numbers, resources, and, sadly, human psychology, are on their side.
Making up some bullshit about 5G mRNA causing steel beams takes 10 seconds, maybe add another 5 for calling you a sheep once you rightly ask what the fuck whoever’s been smoking. If you wanted to debunk the actual claim, you’d spend orders of magnitude more time and effort than they did, only for them to refuse to even glance at your arguments and studies. Assuming the entire belief isn’t fake just to fuck with people, “facts and logic” certainly weren’t involved in arriving at it, and are unlikely to budge the actual reason for that belief.
I scroll lemmy. Apparently we are about to go to war with Texas.
We can never preach our values to the world again. How can our allies trust us?
The United States has been overthrowing democratically elected governments for a hundred years. The CIA has exported terrorism, trained gorilla soldiers to terrorize and torture civilians, and promoted fascism over democracy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
We have a war on drugs that is really a war on people, an excuse to target people of color. We have a for profit prison system run by private corporations that lobby politicians in what is effectively legal bribery. Our entire economic system, capitalism, allows those with wealth to exploit those without, and to use their power and money to “lobby” politicians. People are never going to get a fair shake.
Edit: The US has amazing people and so much potential to survive and overcome our problems, but there’s a darkness that motivates people in power, maybe it’s fear of communism or fear of powerlessness, idk
What values?
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That will never happen.
Focus:
Exactly as Stephen R. Covey pointed-out, in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families”
https://www.amazon.com/Habits-Effective-Families-Revised-Updated/dp/1250857775/
You have a Circle-of-Concern: all the things you attach your awareness on,
and you also have a Circle-of-Influence: all the things you actually can alter.
Since the bigger your Circle-of-Concern, the LESS life-energy you have for your Circle-of-Influence, therefore you need to deliberately reduce your Circle-of-Concern, in order to expand your Circle-of-influence.
That’s it: it’s that simple.
Deny awareness-vampire processes your lifeblood.
Own your own self, more, & use that self-owning in order to make your portion of the world more-healthy.
Just because mass-media did all it could to make one boundaryless, helplessly stuck in consuming-trance, bedazzled & led-along like steers the industry is bringing into the abbatoir, doesn’t mean that you or I agreed to our lives doing/being only that, does it?
We never agreed.
It is our right to break the “agreement” that our childhoods were signed-into, before we could do any considered-reasoning.
Either we have the guts & gall to do it, or our-lives are consumed by the “machine” that exists only for sake of its own transient profit-sensations.
Owning one’s own life is a right.
_ /\ _
I gave up on everyone: I’ve packed my shit and moved back to the EU, to a middle of nowhere, population 50. Closest neighbor is a 10 minute walk away. Started a large garden, learned some blacksmithing and basic carpentry. Still working remotely for the same company as before, but now when I go outside I have fresh air, I can see the stars and I can hear nobody.
That sounds… very pleasant.
It mostly is, but it has it’s drawbacks:
- if I don’t feel like cooking I don’t have an option of ordering a pizza or eating out - I’m outside of delivery range of everything
- closest town has limited choice of everything. I have to get everything shipped or drive for 1.5h.
- anything but essential services is more than half an hour away
also you end up thinking weird thoughts few people have before: e.g. “how do I stop moose from trampling my garlic?” I mean how many people throughout human history had pondered that? ;-)
possibly many people before the industrial revolution
Pot helps, for a little while at least
This was my answer. Blaze it 420 till the earth kicks us off.
How do I cope? Poorly
Exactly what I was about to post
I’m 51, I grew up with media fear mongering of the Cold War, the hole in the ozone layer and AIDS. I don’t think there has ever been a period in my life where there hasn’t been a threat in some form or another, and I sleep like a baby. We aren’t going backwards, it’s just another day at the office.
If you find yourself worrying about events on the other side of the world then you need to switch off the news and focus on what you can control in your own life. Sure, WW3 could be around the corner, Covid 2 Electric Boogaloo could be more lethal or the icebergs could melt, but we can’t do a goddamn thing about it, so what is worrying going to accomplish?
Worry about paying the mortgage, making sure your family are fed, and stay safe.
Isn’t this a mindset for complacent people, though?
Don’t get me wrong, I think exactly like you. But sometimes, I feel that by thinking this way, I’m just taking a shortcut. It seems like an easy way out for issues that should be tackled by humanity (of which you and I are a part), and instead of contributing, we’re just letting it happen.
Think about activists, for example. To do what they do, they can’t just turn off the news and be oblivious to what’s happening. They might not be directly solving the problems, but they are doing something within their reach, even if it means feeling overwhelmed, like OP seems to be feeling.
Does any of this make sense?
How attached can you be without undoing your own mental stability?
Figure that out, then apply it. Please, the world needs you.
Agreed. If enough of us look the fuck up instead of taking what we’re fed… maybe it doesn’t have to be “another day at the office”? I was in middle school when we had the ill-fated assembly in the cafeteria to watch the first teacher astronaut go up, but that didn’t kill my dreams of exploring the stars (the realization in my teens of its extreme unlikelihood did).
If the “best advice” is just to keep your head down and focus on your work, then that’s more about accepting your fate as an infinitesimally tiny cog in someone else’s cash engine. Fuck that.
On average the world is better than it’s ever been. Higher life expectancies, less war, better quality of life; it’s all generally on the up. Would you rather go back to the last financial crisis? When the ozone layer was being depleted? The interment threat of nuclear annihilation? Race riots? Women not being able to vote? High infant mortality? etc, etc
There is less war, but that’s not always a great indicator. Depending on how you define “war” you could even define Ukraine/Russian war not as a war.
Life expectancy is going up because of 3rd world countries finally catching up. It’s going down in America.
The “world” is also getting richer. But the average person is getting poorer.
Also ozone layer isn’t doing great, there are race riots still, there is threat of nuclear war with Russia existing in its current state, a lot of rights are threatened and a lot of people want to return to a time before women’s suffrage. I haven’t looked up anything on infant mortality, but I imagine with abortion band happening that will also change for the worse.
The only peace I’ve found is action.
This is such a short-sighted and USA-centric response. Your life expectancy seems fine, and even if there were a blip I’m sure it will continue to increase on average. Wealth is not an objective measure of quality of life. The ozone layer repaired itself. Even in America you’ve got a lot less lynching than you used to have. Speak to anyone who lived through the cold war and tell them you think nuclear war is just as much of a threat now as it was then.
I do have arguments against all of what you said. But the funniest one is definitely the ozone layer.
You sure you want to say the ozone layer is fine? When was the last time you looked at anything talking about it?
As a result of the scientific findings and the possible severe impacts of ozone depletion, governments around the world began passing laws reducing or banning the production of CFCs and other ODSs. This culminated in the Montreal Protocol, agreed in 1987, which has now been signed by every member state of the United Nations. Signatories to the Montreal Protocol have agreed to phase out ODSs and replace them with less-damaging substances.
Since the passing of the Montreal Protocol, the emissions of ODSs have fallen to a fraction of their levels in the early 1980s and the ozone layer has begun to recover. The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica still exists, but it has been slowly shrinking over the past two decades thanks to concerted international action.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate/climate-explained/ozone-layer
So not completely back to how it was before we fucked it, but the problem has been fixed
"By taking a holistic look at the yearly progression of the Antarctic ozone hole over the last two decades, we find that:
The addition of recent years to the Antarctic (60°S–90°S) total column ozone time series results in insignificant long-term change since the early 2000’s, even where significant recovery has previously been reported. During this time, we find a delay in both the deep ozone hole onset date as well as the breakup date."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42637-0
Tl:dr if all you’re doing is looking at the peak/minimum times of year it can seem better. The hole “breathes” and they’re getting delayed.
I work on diesel trucks, they create a lot of N0x. This article talks about how N0x being bad. It’s a niche thing but I at least understand why I tend to see these things first.
Ah bugger
Less war?
There’s a genocide going on in the middle east right now by settler colonialist fully backed by the western powers to destabilize the region and I’m sure you know that, it’s just irrelevant to you.
There’re too many neoliberals on lemmy, I can’t even deal fam
There were at least 2 other genocides in progress the last October when this mess started. You only care about this one because you have been told to.
Neoliberalism is really an economic philosophy. It doesn’t really have a lot to say about how a nation ought to position itself toward foreign wars. It’s not an all purpose slur for people who disagree with you.
On average the world is better than it’s ever been
Of course, certain groups of people have been trying to reverse these trends in the name of…money? Tradition?
The newer generations are no longer becoming smarter (I believe it was the Flynn effect). Education is being defunded at all levels.
The cost of living in many parts of the world has been outpacing wages… especially now, but for decades. Yet we have more wealth hoarded into fewer hands.
Anti-vax and anti-science movements have been reintroducing measles and have been making it hard to fight other diseases.
We are seeing the effects of these things in action, and they will only get worse over time.
Some people argue that humanity was never freer, happier and healthier than before the agricultural revolution. Everything has gone to shit since we decided to settle down on a small plot of land.
It was much simpler when you were born, miraculously survived childhood, hunted, gathered, then died before your back even had time to get sore
Either turn the news off or do something about it i.e protest, donate to the ACLU etc.
Watching the news and not taking any tangible action is a recipe for depression and is thoroughly pointless.
I see you’ve met my father-in-law. Quite the party pooper
How do I cope?
The media sells the idea the world is on fire. By a lot of measures, humanity is the best it’s ever been:
Things do seem bad, things do need fixing. My advice is to pick one singular part of the world you want to improve and figure out how to fix it. Something like abolishing prison labor or environmentalism. It needs to be something you can make a noticeable dent in, where you can see your own contribution to the effort.
Don’t change tack every time something new like Isreal-Hamas or the scuffle at the US-Mexico border happens. You picked that one thing to fix, remember? And unless you plan on going down to the border with a gun, how do you plan on making a real difference? If you can’t make a difference, why let it bother you?
This depends on what you’re measuring and where.
Also it’s good to have perspective by comparison but life happens in the moment to moment. If people are reporting feeling worse then that is current state and that is what matters.
I’m saying that their moment to moment is being influenced by being bombarded with nothing except negative news.
That leads to an “everything is awful” mentality that bleeds into one’s personal life.
By helping people nearby.
Part of it is the mantra “out of my control, out of my concern.” Or “not my circus, not my monkeys.” That doesn’t mean I don’t care. It means I do what I can do, and try not to despair about what I can’t change.
I don’t doom scroll.
I read a copy of my local, still-Independent newspaper free every morning with digital access to my library.
I vote in every local, State and Federal election.
I vote Progressive in the Primaries and Democrat in the General.
I say ‘Yes’ to any/all referendums that Tax the wealthy.
That’s about all I can do without financially impacting my family or my career. If it was feasible I’d maybe even start attending my Town Hall meetings just to get a barometer reading on my local Council Members.
Crazy thing is I’m 36yo, and sanity checks have required me to act like a 60yo from the 90s… minus the ‘got mine’ Boomer attitude.
Don’t read/watch news. That’s the only advice I can trully gie you since news are made to purposfully make people restless.
I browse Lemmy & Reddit for 12-16hrs per day and eat out of bean tins. I shower once per week before meeting my probation officer.
That’s about it.
Favorite brand?
Of probation officer?
Of shower.
Normally I just get what the food bank gives out but my faves are Branston. :)
Huh, haven’t had those. Will check it out!
Favorite band?
Gotta be Nine Inch Nails! I’ve seen them twice and now Atticus is officially part of NIN with Trent they count as a proper band rather than a solo artist! ;)
I think I oghtta give them a proper go. Always liked their hits, and bands typically have way better shit than the radio has time for. Thanks for answering.
Skimmed through their 2020 stuff, what is going on there? It’s like 2 hours of intros it feels like.
Ooooh yeah don’t bother with Ghosts. He’s been going for ~40yrs and his Ghosts stuff is more like his creative common free music he gives to people.
I started on With Teeth album but his top albums are often considered to be Downward Spiral and Fragile.
If I was you I’d listen to Downward Spiral, the Fragile then With Teeth. After that maybe try Pretty Hate Machine which is slightly more dark-poppy-shynth-wave.
Quicker song video tasters:
I’ll stop now otherwise I’ll be posting the entire back catalogue! :D
Thanks, I’ll check it out
Damn thought you were asking them their favorite band. Hold my beer, I’m going in.
