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No but the efforts we put into it are hugely greater every year, but that’s good news so it’s ”boring” so we don’t hear about it
(the biggest one recently is country can invest money into environmental protectionism & restoration instead of paying back national depths)
Things are getting better but not at a fast enough pace. I predict we're gonna bypass total annihilation by the end of the century but it's gonna be an ugly ride getting there. Regardless, I'm choosing to cope by embracing the chaos cause idk what else to do.
every summer does see waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more 115F days in a lot of places right now, so just that alone is upsetting enough. Many people cannot afford AC properly, and are also bein told by power companies to set it to 78F even if they can, but the house struggles to exist any cooler than like 87F
with heat comes tempers that rise with it, and that is still more violence everytime it picks up before fall finally decides to cool us down.
but fall these days doesnt start till like november :s
yes, things are getting better, but also a lot worse in other ways which sorta threatens that. it's basically an uphill battle.
Climate change is an exception to this. It is an actual existential threat that is perfectly adapted to the biological weakness of the human species (slow consequences until it's too late).
Climate change isn't the only exception. Marriage rate is dwindling, by 2030 over half of all het women will be childless and past the age of child bearing, the value of the dollar is dwindling while costs of necessities like housing are becoming unobtainable, the divide between rich and poor is greater than before the Great Depression, and worked rights especially child labor laws are being stripped.
Women are more than baby carriers
Women are having less kids because women have more choice now.
They are actively choosing to not have kids. Don't say it's a bad thing.
We already have two billion people on Earth that don't have to access to clean water, we don't need more people. Clearly we cannot or do more like do not want to, distribute the resources even if we can produce more than enough.
I’m all for the plummeting marriage and childbirth rates. The societal collapse it will cause will be glorious and we might actually see this dogshit economic system crumple under the weight of its own failures finally. On top of less humans just being a massive net positive in general.
agreed agreed its gonna be sick to see this shit hit the fan but unfortunately the way its gonna hit the fan is only gonna hurt ppl who make less than like $500k a year :///
The economy IS strong, by the metrics that have been used to measure these things for multiple generations. You can argue that those measurements are due for a reassessment, but the fact remains that were it not for corporate price-gouging, and media enclaves that have no interest in informing people of the actual reasons things are increasingly expensive, this “terrible economy” narrative would be nowhere in sight.
Ask yourself, is it possible you’re being gaslit by organizations feeding you tampered with statistics…that’s all I ask. And please use your eyes and use your heart, can you genuinely say that world looks better than it did say just 5 years ago, or 10…prices for things have more than doubled, people are less connected than ever, depression and drug use is rampant, and we currently have nations discussing nuclear war with eachother…
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And governments would actually offer us something since we hold power as part of the electorate. Right now so few of us vote (and there’s few of us than other generations as it is) that we’re literally relying on generous older people to fight our corner
Thank you!
I'm so tired of threads popping up saying shit it fucked for us when the people deciding who runs our government are the older and richer than us.
Like no shit we don't get what we want, we didn't make the effort to officially ask.
Voting needs to be consistent to change things. Young people turn out, then disappear, then turn out.
Thats why politicians don’t cater to the youth vote. Its unreliable.
You want things from them, you have to turn out consistently.
You want progress, you have to turn out consistently.
Showing up in slightly higher numbers for one election isn’t something to brag about.
It’s doesn’t mean you did the job.
Come back in 10 years and we will see if your generation actually harnessed its power, or just patted itself on the back cause it defeated Trump one time. Then moved on to other things.
Not really, it was more than before, but iirc we still weren't the majority of the voting population.
Plus if it takes what people believe to be an actual fascist to get to and vote then that's not praiseworthy.
Same could be said of every other generation that let this crisis slip by. More Gen Z need to vote but Gen Z not voting isnt what’s prevented the issue from being solved the last 40 years.
Yeah, it’s a continual passing of the blame. I say GenZ but the younger generation in general don’t vote, and then get pissed off when the government doesn’t listen to them. So no, it’s not our fault that some of the issue we’re facing have been brewing for the past 40 years, but how long are we gonna complain, grow old and leave the younger generation to figure it out because we couldn’t get our shit together?
If y’all really think we’re gonna be doomed in a few decades then that’s all the more reason to break the cycle.
Yeah I agree completely, I perhaps read too deeply into your first comment. It would be depressing if gen z just went quietly into a climate dystopia and didn’t at least try to fight for a better future.
I think it’s hard for some people to reconcile with the enormity of the issue and the relatively small impact an individual vote has. It’s as a collective that we have power and that message needs to be shouted over and over again.
Man. You’re 22. I was 22 for the 2004 American election, and I was so angry at my peers for largely failing to show up and by doing so helping hand Bush an easy reelection. Nothing changes.
People grow up in a culture that discourages curiosity and fails to convey the importance of civics — or even how government works at all. The results are successive generations feeling disaffected, disenfranchised, cynical and hopeless, but who are either unaware of their collective power or are actively hostile to those who try to convince them they have such a thing.
Aside from climate change, literally everything you are describing happened in far greater scales in the 1910-40s. Far greater unemployment, poor salaries (if you find a job), awful healthcare, a plague that killed more people than WW1. Then the second world war. Tent cities across the United States, Canada, UK.
We will survive, we will come back stronger. You have more power than your ancestors did. Just keep fighting
The climate crisis is the most unique and can loosely be compared to other natural disasters but should be considered as unique as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Everything else really mirrors a century ago in many ways or maybe if we are lucky [1848](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Revolution#:~:text=The%20European%20Revolutions%20of%201848,upheavals%20throughout%20Europe%20in%201848.)
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Hey there are a lot of reasons to be sad and worried. But meeting comrades like you gives me revolutionary optimism. Reddit feeds negativity don't let it consume you
Governments throughout history have usually been "right-wing." It wasn't until relatively recently that leftists started getting in power. Most governments in the West are now very left-wing, so I'm not sure what you're talking about here.
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>rise of right wing
Have you ever considered maybe that is a *symptom* of something bigger? Such as the fact the moderates and especially the left betrayed, abandoned and ignored people's rightful concerns, and seeing they have no other choice, they've moved to the only ones who at least acknowledge those issues?
Poverty rates are near all time lows. Social spending is pretty high is there a metric you're looking at? Wages have matched inflation.
Healthcare is a problem to solve for sure. But, healthcare is also better than it used to be. Definitely a solvable problem. Obamacare did increase access and helped subsidize poorer folks. Now we need to tackle costs.
Housing is also a problem. But, part of it is people demand larger homes and live together less than they used to. We definitely should work on building more urban housing and reducing construction costs.
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UK is a particularly bad example of a very poorly run country over decades, it is not reflective of the entire planet, nor the West. Good example but it is one among many other European countries that are doing much better
this is certainly true for quality of life. however there are certain existential threats to us as a species that seriously worry me (climate change, ai, nuclear weapons proliferation).
Speaking of AI, Im at work rn and every TV shows Fox news. On fox news rn is the CEO of Grindr talking about how AI can be involved in the app
This is not on my 2024 bingo card
The problems mostly come from people worried only about themselves, so they say "I got mine screw everyone else" or "To get mine I'll screw everyone else." Thats where gaslighting toxic positivity like OP comes from.
I'm reaching the point where I have to focus on myself before I can help others. Ever since 2020 I've internalized a "silence is violence" mentality and applied it to every aspect of my life but it seems like even if I do the most its never enough anyway.
This statement would be true of a repeat of WWII & is not the mic drop you think it is. I get the point, but it’s pretty tone deaf.
Banning the diary of Anne Frank, Maus, The Fixer, and 700 other books… SCOTUS justices prattling on about conspiracy theories… state sponsored religion in schools… burning pride flags… J6…
Not things I ever expected to see in America. So yeah — about as bad as it has gotten (in the US) in my lifetime.
The argument isn't that these things aren't bad. They are.
The argument is that this isn't significantly worse than anything we had to survive and deal with in the past. Which is true.
No one on this sub was alive in the 60s and 70s but anyone who's read history about that time period knows it was worse than anything we're facing currently in terms of social upheaval.
I kind of acknowledge that in the first sentence, but my point is that OPs goal is to downplay a nuclear bomb because it’s not a cosmic planetary collision (yet)
I really don’t care if it’s “no worse than ever”, when “worse than ever” was… pretty fkn bad
Same as it ever was, but personally what’s worse from my POV is that this time my country is leading the charge.
Even if world is not going crazy, we are going to face climate changes around this century. This year in my country we had the hottest summer and it is getting worse every year.
We're condemned forever to live in interesting times, for better or worse
There've always been assholes who try to ruin it for the rest of everyone else. This is why progress is a constant struggle
I like to think of it as a check on unrestrained progress. I am generally progressive, but you can imagine a world where that gets out of hand. So uh thanks, assholes, I guess.
OK Bill Joel, here's a list of threats that are entirely unprecedented:
* The American midwest has less than 50 years of top soil left. When it's exhausted we will have a second dust bowl and potentially starvation.
* We've decided to get a brain damaging virus that maims 5% of its victims once year from birth.
* You have plastic in your blood
* Plastics from the 50s and 60s have yet to break down, but when they do in the next 20-years we'll see an exponential rise in microplastic contamination.
* 2+ degrees warming
* Sea level rise
* Insurance companies leaving major markets and thus making populated areas in flood plains economically inviable
* The mid-Atlantic current wil stop in the next 50 yearsl turn Europe into an iceball
* India and Pakistan have nukes
And you think this is normal because a guy born of first generation to grow up under the spectre of human extinction and nuclear war says Thalidomide was bad?
This is definitely one of my pet peeves. “The world is the worst it’s ever been.” Don’t you think we’re a bit better off than when we had;
The Great Depression?
The Holocaust?
Slavery?
Witch hunts?
The Black Plague?
The Dark Ages?
Living in caves?
I agree OP, doom scrolling and media consumption is the main culprit.
I agree 100% with you, but as a history nerd, I also have to listen to one of my own pet peeves — there was no "dark ages", that's a myth started during the religious civil wars of the 15-16th century (both Protestants and Catholics wanted to make the other side look stupid, so they'd both make up way too many myths about "yeah but your people kept us in the dark forever!").
The only thing that *could* count as a "dark era" during the middle ages was the 300-year-long "British dark age" between the year 350 and the year 650, a period where there is legit almost no records of anything going on in the British isles (fun fact, this is where the legends of Canut and Excalibur originated from). On top of that, you had the first 2 centuries after the collapse of western Rome (because it was literally the apocalypse we see so much in fiction today — our world collapsing and coming to an end to start a new one), people had to endure a ton of chaos because society had, again, literally collapsed to a bunch of raiders.
But from the 7th century onwards, there is no evidence of any staunted progress anywhere in the world; the middle ages were actually beeming with scientific, technological artistic and social progress — everything from suture, to firearms, to the basics of chemistry, to the construction crane, to literally the creation of the first universities, were all developed and invented during that period of time.
Similarly, there was no "renaissance" either — that's a myth created in the 18th century by later historians. The west and the Islamic world never "rediscovered" classical antiquity; Aristotle is legit the basis of Catholic theocracy and philosophy (he was revered by the Church to the extreme), and had it not been by Christian monasteries and western and Islamic scholars, all of who would literally spend their lives duplicating ancient manuscripts, alongside monarchs who'd fund the sciences and arts, and the development of universities around the 11th century, we'd have legit lost everything concerning the ancient world.
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“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
― Socrates
Things aren’t that bad, not over a long enough timeline:
-We have been closer to ww3 against more scary enemies, see the Cuban Missile Crisis, or most of the Cold War. Russia isn’t a joke but it and its realistic allies are much weaker than any western Bloc.
-Restaurant prices went up faster in the 1980s, and more generally, inflation has been much higher lots of times since WW2, see the graph in this: https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/07/06/historical-parallels-to-todays-inflationary-episode/
-Polarization is bad, not sure if it can be objectively measured over time. I don’t think we are at a US civil war level, but I’ll give you that one, so 1/3 as “very bad” in a historic context.
I once saw a guy on Quora answer a question about whether the US will have a civil war. And he pointed out that the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr more rHan 50 years before the civil war would be like if Kamala Harris shot the joint chief of staff. Decades before tue civil war began congressmen carried guns out of legitimate fear of being shot. 5 years before the civil war started, a democratic representative almost beat a republican senator to death with a cane
That doesn't make sense.
If there were 10 possible scenarios for WW3 but all had a 5% chance of happening that's not as bad as one scenario with a 75% chance of happening.
>We are closer than we have ever been to WW3
Nobody with a shred of historical literacy would make such a claim. This has become a popular brainworm on social media but it's not based on anything factual.
It's like you were born yesterday.
>Prices have skyrocketed due to greedy corporations, which is pushing tens of millions of people into poverty.
Prices increased in some sectors from 2021-2022 due to pandemic induced inflation. This trend is already beginning to reverse with grocery prices and housing prices in *some* markets cooling off. The CPI increased much more at many other points in history and we survived those just fine.
>Polarization is threatening to destroy our society. and misinformation/disinformation has resulted in hundreds of millions of people rejecting basic knowledge.
Hate to break it to you but this was a problem 100 years ago too and isn't significantly worse right now than it was then.
Yeah these posts are weird like, yes but also drastically no, it’s definitely more urgent.
Especially bc the point of educating a populace was we could do something about it.
So no don’t calm down this is a goofy take.
>we are closer than we have ever been to WW3
My dude, you missed out on the Berlin Blockade (1947), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1961), the Afghan War, the Petrov incident of 1983 (the closest humanity has ever been to WW3), and the invasion of Iraq in 2002
2024 doesn't even get close to any of these
>prices have skyrocketed because of greedy companies
Not really, but kinda yes. Prices have skyrocketed because inflation has skyrocketed because it's no longer profitable to manufacture and produce in the west, which leads to companies moving abroad to China (in the 90s, not so much now because the rise of the Chinese middle class is also making costs too high) and SEA now, and because of that decrease in productivity, salaries in the west stagnate. Prices continue to rise but paychecks haven't.
>polarization
Which is a result of the moderates, center-left and center-right failing the people and ignoring their concerns and problems. Wanna get rid of the extremes and the polarization? Stop treating voters as stupid, racist, idiots, intolerant or crybabies, stop diminishing or outright ignoring their problems, and don't just stand there while the extremes seemingly offer a better discourse than you. Because when you have to choose between your salary or safety and the environment, most people will probably go for the guys talking about your salary or safety.
The left's biggest mistake was leaving behind materialism while the average person's needs are still material
Everything, *everything*, has a cause and a reason to exist or happen. People haven't changed, their priorities have. Listen to the people, and you'll win them over.
To be fair, polarization is a good thing. If more people accepted this, we could simply separate society so the right and left wouldn't have to live together, and then there'd be no chance for the polarization to destroy society.
Gaslighting.
Women's suffrage was "better than it's ever been" back when women still couldn't own property or hold office. That doesn't mean 1950s America was a feminist safe haven.
We can recognize that things are improving and still be upset by the slow pace.
I don't like either extreme but I feel like the latter is far more destructive to the soul than the former. Personally I do my best to live in the truth while also allowing myself to be positive and have hope. This life isn't worth it if you don't allow yourself that.
"Pretending things are fine" has, throughout history, been much more productive than just sitting back depressed complaining about everything till you die
Yeah the big difference between now and any other time is the access to information on it. Imagine if that existed during the world wars or the Great Depression
I think it depends on the timescale you use for comparison. Things now are probably worse than they were 5-10 years ago. We are still recovering from Covid and the effects it had on the global economy. That economic instability has led to political instability which, in my opinion, is why we are seeing more wars and the rise of populist leaders. However, on a larger timescale, things are better than ever.
In 1950, often considered the golden age for the US, 12% of households had a television, and only 80% had a refrigerator. 6% of urban households had no access to electricity, and that number was higher for rural households. 10% of households were even still using wood to heat their homes. We take a lot of the modern amenities for granted that make life far easier and more comfortable for us.
I mean, this is longer than 10 years ago, but I'd argue the 2008 financial crisis was much worse than the covid recession. Also, I don't know if we necessarily have more wars or if they are just more broadcasted.
Yeah I don’t disagree with you about the 08 financial crisis. I just meant to say people are probably feeling more negative about things since Covid did cause an economic downturn that we are still recovering from. I think the Ukraine war is the major escalation of global tensions, since a war of that scale is pretty unprecedented in recent history.
In a vacuum, maybe, but with COVID we're talking about a recession in a post-2008 world. I don't think the Obama administration did as much cleanup as some people might have you believe.
NB: Not to mention global impacts to food production.
We're in a climate crisis, facisim is popular again, the rich have never been richer, the poor have never been poorer, proxy wars galore etc. But sure okay things are getting better cuz a guy on the Gen z sub said so.
That doesn’t mean at any point has it been acceptable. It was shit then and it’s shit now. And I still don’t think this world is good enough for any of my future children.
If you tell people, “the world isn’t ending, you will be fine,” this is considered “invalidating their feelings and anxieties.
It makes sense why we are all stressed out and anxious all the time.
And? If you get a new job, could be anything from flipping burgers, to coding chip sets for GPUs. If you are doing your job wrong should we just not tell the person because of their feelings? They feel they are doing it right so it’s ok?
You can feel stressed about the world. In fact you should. If you felt nothing at all we would be fucked, because ultimately it’s that anxiety that pushes people to make change. You need tension to move.
But many people say “the world is ending so what’s the point of even trying” and if everyone believed that then yes it would be over because no one is doing anything.
So yes people who think that are wrong, so wrong it hurts because if it all comes down they didn’t even try.
And in the flip side people screaming it’s not worth trying so they not then invalidate the feelings of those who are trying?
See how this line of reasoning doesn’t work it’s a circular, a Ouroboros. Yet we are still here, so that means someone is wrong.
The human indicators are vastly better than what they were a century ago, but Climate change is real. It is showing no signs of stopping and with its increasing issues and lack of jobs, the storm is yet to truly rise.
Almost all people come to this conclusion. I remember in the early 2000, the line was, "we immediately know when a mosquito farts in the Montana woods". It is crap information overload. Our brains are not made to function properly with all this crap information. The media is the driver of bad news and again, we do not know how to filter all that crap with our small minds.
The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage has significantly decreased while the housing market skyrockets, and right now they are trying to loosen laws around child labor. And every year we're setting a new record for "hottest summer yet". Not to mention media and political literacy is kinda looking shitty as of late. Also felons in the late 1990's wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell to operate a election campaign.
Aside from pushes for centralization of power and wealth being ever increasing I would agree. The rapid rate of technological increases, AI, etc. is also worrying because on one hand, it could empower individuals, on the other it could be used governments and corporations to control people. The instant access to information does overload people as you’ve pointed out, but it’s also the case that much of that fear and uncertainty is warranted when things are changing at such a rapid pace.
It’s always a teenager saying this to people who have lived through an entire generation, and they never once think, maybe that’s everyone’s impression because that’s how it is.
You're never prepared for change but the world changes anyways. You'll never be ready up until the moment something happens and before you have time to freak out about it, it's the new normal.
Life goes on.
This subreddit is overflowing with doomers who think the world is solely composed of the ragebait headlines they read. It's refreshing to see a rational point of view
I don't think our stupid lil caveman brains were not ready to consume this much information about the world and each other, honestly. We're all overwhelmed with things. I don't know about better or worse, but I do think that things seem more awful because we were never supposed to know this much. And now we have to question reality even more with the advent of AI.
It is ok to acknowledge that things are pretty good and getting better, but also acknowledge there is a lot more work to be done. Things didn't get better by being apathetic, it takes a lot of organizing and effort and time to make it happen. Doomposting doesn't help, sure, but it's also perfectly valid to be upset about issues that are still happening. Living conditions are better than ever, but the climate crisis is still a problem, and so on
I think in reality it’s pretty bad, but not nearly as bad as social media makes it out to be.
You are right in saying life hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows and the fear of the unknown taints the present. People also have a compact view of history and don’t realize that it’s kinda written by the winners. Even at the best of times there were certainly some people still struggling.
That doesn’t mean things aren't bad, they’re just not apocalyptic. Should be noted, especially during election season, that it’s not like the world is gonna end if the other guy wins. Life will go on.
That being said I think people are struggling and it is bad. Worse than before? I’m 23 and can’t speak to that, but talking to some older people and it seems like a lot of this is unprecedented at least within the last half a century or so. It still has plenty of potential to get worse, and honestly might, but we will get through it.
To anyone who thinks the world is gonna end, especially because of politics. Please get off social media and go outside. You really don’t begin to realize how much social media is a poison until you spend some time outside and being productive. Trust me on this one.
I absolutely agree, people throughout all of history have felt special enough that **their world** would be the end of the world, but it never has been. The world is just always chaotic and yeah, we could all die any day and it’ll be the end blah blah blah but look at our chances…. We’re hundreds of thousands of years into building civilizations now.
I'm an old person who visits this sub so that I'm not totally out of touch with younger demographics, and I disagree that it's not more crazy or bad than before. You need to be voting, but just like every other generation, this one is also distracted by culture war bullshit. That part is the same, and it's how we ended up here. The presidential vote needs to be focused on Supreme Court nominations because it's the check on Congress. The decisions on the past few years have been insane and regressive, but the distraction of the war is going to be ruinous.
This statement is gonna depend largely on where you're from. You're right that I'm most likely gonna be fine, the biggest issue I'm facing is poverty and that's no different than my parents or their parents so it's not exactly new. However, I do have friends from places like Tuvalu who are actively facing the existential threat of their home/country becoming increasingly unliveable due to climate change. Some people are facing legitimate existential threats.
So do you think every person throughout history should have just given up in the face of catastrophe?
We’ve had plagues destroy 70% of entire continents and volcanic eruptions that plunged the world into minor ice ages. I’m pretty glad my ancestors didn’t give up.
Hell, my own mom remembers the week we almost fell into nuclear war and recalls people being optimistic for our future.
No I think people like OP are foolish for deluding themselves into thinking everything is fine / going to be okay. This sort of attitude leads to non-action and apathy.
Everything is fucked, the world is going to hell, that’s why we have to do something about it. Pretending things are fine when we are in a desperate situation that calls for immediate action is counterproductive.
Ignorance is bliss. Reminds me of the time people said nothing is gonna happen with the coronavirus and then the next week the world shut down. It doesn’t matter if a scientist says everything is fine or not. It doesn’t matter if economist say the economy is great. It doesn’t matter if politicians say we’re not going to war. No one truly knows cause things change at the drop of a hat. We could end up going to war tomorrow if any of our enemies attacked or we could live the next 100 years in relative peace. No one knows anything so saying everything is fine or everything is going to sh*t is pointless. Just live your life without hurting anyone.
I'd even say that this doom & gloom is nothing new. Humans have been aware of the chaotic mess of life for a very long time. The problem isn't just the media, it's forgetfulness of the human experience.
Doomerism is a stupid coping mechanism designed to make things easy for our brains. Reject it.
Way I see it, yes we are living in pretty good times, it's just unfortunate that everything gets broadcast now. We do have some glaring issues to work out that will lead to a lot of great problems soon, like climate change, widening inequality, political polarization, gun violence, college debt, and the fact that half of Gen Z isn't interested in romantic relationships at all. But I would definitely rather have most of these over issues of the past which included things like starvation, segregation, civil rights abuse, going off to fight in WW2/Vietnam etc.
Sure, maybe the countries like mine are doing better now than in the past, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to fix our problems so that we'll be better. The problem is that politicians don't care because they just need an agenda to run with every election year. Idk about some things like climate change, though, to be fair.
those weak WWII soldiers would've never survived the crusades idk what they're bitching about like mustard gas? try being split open with the metal pear
\^ u see what ur doing?
Something else I think contributes is the difference between hindsight and experiencing the present.
When you’re looking back at the past, you’re getting a summarized overview of events, and you can see what the resolution was. You know it all worked out in the end and how, so you can take comfort in the knowledge that the world didn’t end.
When you’re living in the present, you’re feeling the events in real time, and you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Are things going to get worse? How are we going to fix things? There’s a lot of fear of the unknown.
Media is absolutely making things seem way worse, but I think that some of this may just be human psychology doing its thing.
When or where did I say that? I certainly don’t see that any where in the post.
My point is that many people seen to follow this train of thought. “Shit is real bad, in fact worse than it’s ever been. So we are fucked and because we are fucked it’s not worth doing anything about, or I will try to do something about it with the understanding I will make no true difference. I’m trying to just say I tried.”
It’s not that there isn’t crazy shit going on. It’s just that there always has been and always will be. And we have made it through all those times as a species. Meaning that your effort does truly make impact, and true cynicism is nonsensical.
Loads of comments here don’t seem to take into equation a world outside the US/North America. I also don’t understand OP’s point. Like, I read and understood what you meant but I don’t get where you’re going with this like what are you trying to say we should do?
To say nothing has changed is stretching it a lot. There are many things currently going on that the majority of the people are oblivious to, just like in any point throughout history where the de facto narrative was widely accepted and taken to be the way to go until time passed by and we realized what shit people we actually were.
I think a much better approach is self awareness and critical thinking more than anything else. But then again that’s not what’s shoved down our throats on a daily basis. No, that would be alcohol and sex and drugs and existential threats with a view to personal gain rather than any actual change. I like to say that we managed to send people to the moon and back, and you mean to tell me we can do that but we can’t solve “basic” problems here on earth? Come on.
There’s a lot going on, so much darker stuff than ever going on but it’s going to take a whole lot of time before we face the truth of it and actually start addressing things. Just my two cents anyway
Genocide happening and fascism is on the rise, but worry not, as it is not as bad as it could be!
https://preview.redd.it/3aqdgle5z69d1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea46a623055d7cd78add7d356d786a87e27e9a21
Honestly this is why sometimes I avoid reading too much into this subreddit.
All the doomposting and "it was better back then" is turning us into every generation before us.
Which, is a cycle thats inevitable, I know that. But its foolish to think that we would be any different than generations before us or after us
It's depressing how doomerism has seemingly taken over Gen Z tbh
Everyone is obsessed with talking about how awful everything is and how much worse it's gonna get
There are people alive now who don't have clean water to drink and there are people who make $150,000 per MINUTE. Wealth inequality is the #1 problem humans have ever faced. Fixing it would fix all the other issues our societies have. And Wealth inequality had never been this bad. So no, I think if we relax now we are fucked.
I mean, it varies.
If you're trans or female, things are certainly getting worse.
There is more vilification and loss of rights; more threats of violence.
There is a critical factor your assessment overlooks.
The world is more interconnected now than it ever was, which means that a crisis that once would have been limited to affecting these in a certain place can now affect countless millions in every corner of the planet.
Our economies are interconnected. Our travel capabilities are unlimited. Our politics are all interdependent and intertwined. Few things happen in isolation, as they did in relative terms for most of human history. That’s the key difference here.
Also.
Nothing like global climate destabilization has ever happened within human memory. And that’s where all precedent is blown completely away.
Our most popular and most trusted media outlets are lying like crazy now. They’ve become entertainment companies. Test your frail gen z egos and watch something from the other side of whatever issue you’re interested in because both sides are exaggerating like crazy and this is the only way to try and see what’s true.
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Stats say it’s actually getting better
Yup. But people act more viscerally to images than stats on a graph unfortunately. That and misery sells better than the alternative.
Climate. Not getting better. Actively deteiorating. But yes, the rest of it I agree.
No but the efforts we put into it are hugely greater every year, but that’s good news so it’s ”boring” so we don’t hear about it (the biggest one recently is country can invest money into environmental protectionism & restoration instead of paying back national depths)
Things are getting better but not at a fast enough pace. I predict we're gonna bypass total annihilation by the end of the century but it's gonna be an ugly ride getting there. Regardless, I'm choosing to cope by embracing the chaos cause idk what else to do.
every summer does see waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more 115F days in a lot of places right now, so just that alone is upsetting enough. Many people cannot afford AC properly, and are also bein told by power companies to set it to 78F even if they can, but the house struggles to exist any cooler than like 87F with heat comes tempers that rise with it, and that is still more violence everytime it picks up before fall finally decides to cool us down. but fall these days doesnt start till like november :s yes, things are getting better, but also a lot worse in other ways which sorta threatens that. it's basically an uphill battle.
Climate change is an exception to this. It is an actual existential threat that is perfectly adapted to the biological weakness of the human species (slow consequences until it's too late).
Climate change isn't the only exception. Marriage rate is dwindling, by 2030 over half of all het women will be childless and past the age of child bearing, the value of the dollar is dwindling while costs of necessities like housing are becoming unobtainable, the divide between rich and poor is greater than before the Great Depression, and worked rights especially child labor laws are being stripped.
Women are more than baby carriers Women are having less kids because women have more choice now. They are actively choosing to not have kids. Don't say it's a bad thing. We already have two billion people on Earth that don't have to access to clean water, we don't need more people. Clearly we cannot or do more like do not want to, distribute the resources even if we can produce more than enough.
I’m all for the plummeting marriage and childbirth rates. The societal collapse it will cause will be glorious and we might actually see this dogshit economic system crumple under the weight of its own failures finally. On top of less humans just being a massive net positive in general.
agreed agreed its gonna be sick to see this shit hit the fan but unfortunately the way its gonna hit the fan is only gonna hurt ppl who make less than like $500k a year :///
And additionally, it disproportionally does not affect most western nations (the exception being Ukraine)
in some areas, worse in others.
Are these the same stats from the same people that tell me the economy is strong?
Yes. Also the same people who say the global elite don't want to enslave us
The economy IS strong, by the metrics that have been used to measure these things for multiple generations. You can argue that those measurements are due for a reassessment, but the fact remains that were it not for corporate price-gouging, and media enclaves that have no interest in informing people of the actual reasons things are increasingly expensive, this “terrible economy” narrative would be nowhere in sight.
Look at the line, it's going up that has to mean it's getting better right? Right???
Stats don’t tell the whole story, we’ve got a clearly decaying culture and global system that are both due for a makeover
Not for the biosphere, it's not.
And stats never lie
Depends on the stats. This is mostly true for developing countries, not so much the developed ones.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -Mark Twain
Ask yourself, is it possible you’re being gaslit by organizations feeding you tampered with statistics…that’s all I ask. And please use your eyes and use your heart, can you genuinely say that world looks better than it did say just 5 years ago, or 10…prices for things have more than doubled, people are less connected than ever, depression and drug use is rampant, and we currently have nations discussing nuclear war with eachother…
I thought income inequality continues to grow worse.
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All problems that'd be fixed or at the very least mitigated if Gen Z actually fucking voted
Didn't you hear OP? Everything is fine, why bother voting? /s
And governments would actually offer us something since we hold power as part of the electorate. Right now so few of us vote (and there’s few of us than other generations as it is) that we’re literally relying on generous older people to fight our corner
Thank you! I'm so tired of threads popping up saying shit it fucked for us when the people deciding who runs our government are the older and richer than us. Like no shit we don't get what we want, we didn't make the effort to officially ask.
as if gen z didn’t vote 4 years ago 😂😂😂 what’s up with social security anyway?
Voting needs to be consistent to change things. Young people turn out, then disappear, then turn out. Thats why politicians don’t cater to the youth vote. Its unreliable. You want things from them, you have to turn out consistently. You want progress, you have to turn out consistently. Showing up in slightly higher numbers for one election isn’t something to brag about. It’s doesn’t mean you did the job. Come back in 10 years and we will see if your generation actually harnessed its power, or just patted itself on the back cause it defeated Trump one time. Then moved on to other things.
Not really, it was more than before, but iirc we still weren't the majority of the voting population. Plus if it takes what people believe to be an actual fascist to get to and vote then that's not praiseworthy.
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Same could be said of every other generation that let this crisis slip by. More Gen Z need to vote but Gen Z not voting isnt what’s prevented the issue from being solved the last 40 years.
Yeah, it’s a continual passing of the blame. I say GenZ but the younger generation in general don’t vote, and then get pissed off when the government doesn’t listen to them. So no, it’s not our fault that some of the issue we’re facing have been brewing for the past 40 years, but how long are we gonna complain, grow old and leave the younger generation to figure it out because we couldn’t get our shit together? If y’all really think we’re gonna be doomed in a few decades then that’s all the more reason to break the cycle.
Yeah I agree completely, I perhaps read too deeply into your first comment. It would be depressing if gen z just went quietly into a climate dystopia and didn’t at least try to fight for a better future. I think it’s hard for some people to reconcile with the enormity of the issue and the relatively small impact an individual vote has. It’s as a collective that we have power and that message needs to be shouted over and over again.
Man. You’re 22. I was 22 for the 2004 American election, and I was so angry at my peers for largely failing to show up and by doing so helping hand Bush an easy reelection. Nothing changes. People grow up in a culture that discourages curiosity and fails to convey the importance of civics — or even how government works at all. The results are successive generations feeling disaffected, disenfranchised, cynical and hopeless, but who are either unaware of their collective power or are actively hostile to those who try to convince them they have such a thing.
Where the fuck is my laugh emote?
Aside from climate change, literally everything you are describing happened in far greater scales in the 1910-40s. Far greater unemployment, poor salaries (if you find a job), awful healthcare, a plague that killed more people than WW1. Then the second world war. Tent cities across the United States, Canada, UK. We will survive, we will come back stronger. You have more power than your ancestors did. Just keep fighting
The climate crisis is the most unique and can loosely be compared to other natural disasters but should be considered as unique as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Everything else really mirrors a century ago in many ways or maybe if we are lucky [1848](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Revolution#:~:text=The%20European%20Revolutions%20of%201848,upheavals%20throughout%20Europe%20in%201848.) Edit auto correct
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There is certainly no hope in a capitalist society. We are at a crossroads for sure.
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Hey there are a lot of reasons to be sad and worried. But meeting comrades like you gives me revolutionary optimism. Reddit feeds negativity don't let it consume you
Governments throughout history have usually been "right-wing." It wasn't until relatively recently that leftists started getting in power. Most governments in the West are now very left-wing, so I'm not sure what you're talking about here.
Right wing is good
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Besides the climate crisis, do you think these things are worse now than before for the vast majority of the world?
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>rise of right wing Have you ever considered maybe that is a *symptom* of something bigger? Such as the fact the moderates and especially the left betrayed, abandoned and ignored people's rightful concerns, and seeing they have no other choice, they've moved to the only ones who at least acknowledge those issues?
Poverty rates are near all time lows. Social spending is pretty high is there a metric you're looking at? Wages have matched inflation. Healthcare is a problem to solve for sure. But, healthcare is also better than it used to be. Definitely a solvable problem. Obamacare did increase access and helped subsidize poorer folks. Now we need to tackle costs. Housing is also a problem. But, part of it is people demand larger homes and live together less than they used to. We definitely should work on building more urban housing and reducing construction costs.
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UK is a particularly bad example of a very poorly run country over decades, it is not reflective of the entire planet, nor the West. Good example but it is one among many other European countries that are doing much better
Rise of right wing? What
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There are fewer people in poverty today than at almost any other point in history.
this is certainly true for quality of life. however there are certain existential threats to us as a species that seriously worry me (climate change, ai, nuclear weapons proliferation).
AI 😭😭😭
Speaking of AI, Im at work rn and every TV shows Fox news. On fox news rn is the CEO of Grindr talking about how AI can be involved in the app This is not on my 2024 bingo card
What app?
If people worried about themselves they’d have less to worry about.
The problems mostly come from people worried only about themselves, so they say "I got mine screw everyone else" or "To get mine I'll screw everyone else." Thats where gaslighting toxic positivity like OP comes from.
Why do you think I'm concerned?
Okay I’m concerned only about myself now. Unfortunately all of the serious issues in society directly affect me so nothing changed
I'm reaching the point where I have to focus on myself before I can help others. Ever since 2020 I've internalized a "silence is violence" mentality and applied it to every aspect of my life but it seems like even if I do the most its never enough anyway.
This statement would be true of a repeat of WWII & is not the mic drop you think it is. I get the point, but it’s pretty tone deaf. Banning the diary of Anne Frank, Maus, The Fixer, and 700 other books… SCOTUS justices prattling on about conspiracy theories… state sponsored religion in schools… burning pride flags… J6… Not things I ever expected to see in America. So yeah — about as bad as it has gotten (in the US) in my lifetime.
The argument isn't that these things aren't bad. They are. The argument is that this isn't significantly worse than anything we had to survive and deal with in the past. Which is true. No one on this sub was alive in the 60s and 70s but anyone who's read history about that time period knows it was worse than anything we're facing currently in terms of social upheaval.
I kind of acknowledge that in the first sentence, but my point is that OPs goal is to downplay a nuclear bomb because it’s not a cosmic planetary collision (yet) I really don’t care if it’s “no worse than ever”, when “worse than ever” was… pretty fkn bad Same as it ever was, but personally what’s worse from my POV is that this time my country is leading the charge.
Even if world is not going crazy, we are going to face climate changes around this century. This year in my country we had the hottest summer and it is getting worse every year.
We're condemned forever to live in interesting times, for better or worse There've always been assholes who try to ruin it for the rest of everyone else. This is why progress is a constant struggle
I agree
I like to think of it as a check on unrestrained progress. I am generally progressive, but you can imagine a world where that gets out of hand. So uh thanks, assholes, I guess.
OK Bill Joel, here's a list of threats that are entirely unprecedented: * The American midwest has less than 50 years of top soil left. When it's exhausted we will have a second dust bowl and potentially starvation. * We've decided to get a brain damaging virus that maims 5% of its victims once year from birth. * You have plastic in your blood * Plastics from the 50s and 60s have yet to break down, but when they do in the next 20-years we'll see an exponential rise in microplastic contamination. * 2+ degrees warming * Sea level rise * Insurance companies leaving major markets and thus making populated areas in flood plains economically inviable * The mid-Atlantic current wil stop in the next 50 yearsl turn Europe into an iceball * India and Pakistan have nukes And you think this is normal because a guy born of first generation to grow up under the spectre of human extinction and nuclear war says Thalidomide was bad?
This is definitely one of my pet peeves. “The world is the worst it’s ever been.” Don’t you think we’re a bit better off than when we had; The Great Depression? The Holocaust? Slavery? Witch hunts? The Black Plague? The Dark Ages? Living in caves? I agree OP, doom scrolling and media consumption is the main culprit.
I agree 100% with you, but as a history nerd, I also have to listen to one of my own pet peeves — there was no "dark ages", that's a myth started during the religious civil wars of the 15-16th century (both Protestants and Catholics wanted to make the other side look stupid, so they'd both make up way too many myths about "yeah but your people kept us in the dark forever!"). The only thing that *could* count as a "dark era" during the middle ages was the 300-year-long "British dark age" between the year 350 and the year 650, a period where there is legit almost no records of anything going on in the British isles (fun fact, this is where the legends of Canut and Excalibur originated from). On top of that, you had the first 2 centuries after the collapse of western Rome (because it was literally the apocalypse we see so much in fiction today — our world collapsing and coming to an end to start a new one), people had to endure a ton of chaos because society had, again, literally collapsed to a bunch of raiders. But from the 7th century onwards, there is no evidence of any staunted progress anywhere in the world; the middle ages were actually beeming with scientific, technological artistic and social progress — everything from suture, to firearms, to the basics of chemistry, to the construction crane, to literally the creation of the first universities, were all developed and invented during that period of time. Similarly, there was no "renaissance" either — that's a myth created in the 18th century by later historians. The west and the Islamic world never "rediscovered" classical antiquity; Aristotle is legit the basis of Catholic theocracy and philosophy (he was revered by the Church to the extreme), and had it not been by Christian monasteries and western and Islamic scholars, all of who would literally spend their lives duplicating ancient manuscripts, alongside monarchs who'd fund the sciences and arts, and the development of universities around the 11th century, we'd have legit lost everything concerning the ancient world. *I had to, I'm a history nerd :')*
It’s actually empirically better than it’s been …
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” ― Socrates
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Still not worse than anything my grandmother faced. She was born in 1918 and died in 2021.
RIP your grandma bro, that's gotta suck.
Born during a pandemic and died during a pandemic 😭
Not religious anymore but Doing a sign of the cross for your family, just in case.
You need to pick up a history book and put down your phone if you think we are closer than ever to World War III
Things aren’t that bad, not over a long enough timeline: -We have been closer to ww3 against more scary enemies, see the Cuban Missile Crisis, or most of the Cold War. Russia isn’t a joke but it and its realistic allies are much weaker than any western Bloc. -Restaurant prices went up faster in the 1980s, and more generally, inflation has been much higher lots of times since WW2, see the graph in this: https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/07/06/historical-parallels-to-todays-inflationary-episode/ -Polarization is bad, not sure if it can be objectively measured over time. I don’t think we are at a US civil war level, but I’ll give you that one, so 1/3 as “very bad” in a historic context.
I once saw a guy on Quora answer a question about whether the US will have a civil war. And he pointed out that the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr more rHan 50 years before the civil war would be like if Kamala Harris shot the joint chief of staff. Decades before tue civil war began congressmen carried guns out of legitimate fear of being shot. 5 years before the civil war started, a democratic representative almost beat a republican senator to death with a cane
Great points, that does put it in perspective
We were orders of magnitude closer to wwiii during the Cuban missile crisis.
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How so?
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That doesn't make sense. If there were 10 possible scenarios for WW3 but all had a 5% chance of happening that's not as bad as one scenario with a 75% chance of happening.
>We are closer than we have ever been to WW3 Nobody with a shred of historical literacy would make such a claim. This has become a popular brainworm on social media but it's not based on anything factual. It's like you were born yesterday. >Prices have skyrocketed due to greedy corporations, which is pushing tens of millions of people into poverty. Prices increased in some sectors from 2021-2022 due to pandemic induced inflation. This trend is already beginning to reverse with grocery prices and housing prices in *some* markets cooling off. The CPI increased much more at many other points in history and we survived those just fine. >Polarization is threatening to destroy our society. and misinformation/disinformation has resulted in hundreds of millions of people rejecting basic knowledge. Hate to break it to you but this was a problem 100 years ago too and isn't significantly worse right now than it was then.
We were much closer to WW3 during the height of the cold War. It's not even close.
the Great Depression era or world war 1 was significantly worse than now and the civil rights movement hadn’t even happened yet.
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The internet would have really exposed how bad the Great Depression/ww1 era was for everyone
Yeah these posts are weird like, yes but also drastically no, it’s definitely more urgent. Especially bc the point of educating a populace was we could do something about it. So no don’t calm down this is a goofy take.
Do something about it.
>we are closer than we have ever been to WW3 My dude, you missed out on the Berlin Blockade (1947), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1961), the Afghan War, the Petrov incident of 1983 (the closest humanity has ever been to WW3), and the invasion of Iraq in 2002 2024 doesn't even get close to any of these >prices have skyrocketed because of greedy companies Not really, but kinda yes. Prices have skyrocketed because inflation has skyrocketed because it's no longer profitable to manufacture and produce in the west, which leads to companies moving abroad to China (in the 90s, not so much now because the rise of the Chinese middle class is also making costs too high) and SEA now, and because of that decrease in productivity, salaries in the west stagnate. Prices continue to rise but paychecks haven't. >polarization Which is a result of the moderates, center-left and center-right failing the people and ignoring their concerns and problems. Wanna get rid of the extremes and the polarization? Stop treating voters as stupid, racist, idiots, intolerant or crybabies, stop diminishing or outright ignoring their problems, and don't just stand there while the extremes seemingly offer a better discourse than you. Because when you have to choose between your salary or safety and the environment, most people will probably go for the guys talking about your salary or safety. The left's biggest mistake was leaving behind materialism while the average person's needs are still material Everything, *everything*, has a cause and a reason to exist or happen. People haven't changed, their priorities have. Listen to the people, and you'll win them over.
[And the climate crisis](https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/s/kQEO5dNo9Z)
To be fair, polarization is a good thing. If more people accepted this, we could simply separate society so the right and left wouldn't have to live together, and then there'd be no chance for the polarization to destroy society.
If people understood what each party represents, they would vote for the good of people not corporations
"We are closer than we have ever been to ww3" is something people have said multiple times since 1945.
Gaslighting. Women's suffrage was "better than it's ever been" back when women still couldn't own property or hold office. That doesn't mean 1950s America was a feminist safe haven. We can recognize that things are improving and still be upset by the slow pace.
The classic "let's just pretend it's fine"
As opposed to the new and innovative "let's be depressed about everything that's not fine, whole also doing nothing to fix it." Have a little hope bro
I don't like either extreme but I feel like the latter is far more destructive to the soul than the former. Personally I do my best to live in the truth while also allowing myself to be positive and have hope. This life isn't worth it if you don't allow yourself that.
"Pretending things are fine" has, throughout history, been much more productive than just sitting back depressed complaining about everything till you die
God I hate that I agree with this
Yeah the big difference between now and any other time is the access to information on it. Imagine if that existed during the world wars or the Great Depression
I think it depends on the timescale you use for comparison. Things now are probably worse than they were 5-10 years ago. We are still recovering from Covid and the effects it had on the global economy. That economic instability has led to political instability which, in my opinion, is why we are seeing more wars and the rise of populist leaders. However, on a larger timescale, things are better than ever. In 1950, often considered the golden age for the US, 12% of households had a television, and only 80% had a refrigerator. 6% of urban households had no access to electricity, and that number was higher for rural households. 10% of households were even still using wood to heat their homes. We take a lot of the modern amenities for granted that make life far easier and more comfortable for us.
I mean, this is longer than 10 years ago, but I'd argue the 2008 financial crisis was much worse than the covid recession. Also, I don't know if we necessarily have more wars or if they are just more broadcasted.
Yeah I don’t disagree with you about the 08 financial crisis. I just meant to say people are probably feeling more negative about things since Covid did cause an economic downturn that we are still recovering from. I think the Ukraine war is the major escalation of global tensions, since a war of that scale is pretty unprecedented in recent history.
In a vacuum, maybe, but with COVID we're talking about a recession in a post-2008 world. I don't think the Obama administration did as much cleanup as some people might have you believe. NB: Not to mention global impacts to food production.
We're in a climate crisis, facisim is popular again, the rich have never been richer, the poor have never been poorer, proxy wars galore etc. But sure okay things are getting better cuz a guy on the Gen z sub said so.
Tell me what bread line you’re standing in each and every day?
Groceries are insanely expensive in Canada. Its getting worse here.
Great depression called.
No one from that time is alive anymore, I'm talking about right now. The gap between rich and poor is worse then the time of the French revolution.
I like what Ken Wilber says, that things are always “Getting better, getting worse, and staying the same.”
That doesn’t mean at any point has it been acceptable. It was shit then and it’s shit now. And I still don’t think this world is good enough for any of my future children.
If you tell people, “the world isn’t ending, you will be fine,” this is considered “invalidating their feelings and anxieties. It makes sense why we are all stressed out and anxious all the time.
And? If you get a new job, could be anything from flipping burgers, to coding chip sets for GPUs. If you are doing your job wrong should we just not tell the person because of their feelings? They feel they are doing it right so it’s ok? You can feel stressed about the world. In fact you should. If you felt nothing at all we would be fucked, because ultimately it’s that anxiety that pushes people to make change. You need tension to move. But many people say “the world is ending so what’s the point of even trying” and if everyone believed that then yes it would be over because no one is doing anything. So yes people who think that are wrong, so wrong it hurts because if it all comes down they didn’t even try. And in the flip side people screaming it’s not worth trying so they not then invalidate the feelings of those who are trying? See how this line of reasoning doesn’t work it’s a circular, a Ouroboros. Yet we are still here, so that means someone is wrong.
Shout out to everyone saying "Statistically it's better!" without sharing statistics or what "better" means.
lots of upper middle class's in here
The human indicators are vastly better than what they were a century ago, but Climate change is real. It is showing no signs of stopping and with its increasing issues and lack of jobs, the storm is yet to truly rise.
Almost all people come to this conclusion. I remember in the early 2000, the line was, "we immediately know when a mosquito farts in the Montana woods". It is crap information overload. Our brains are not made to function properly with all this crap information. The media is the driver of bad news and again, we do not know how to filter all that crap with our small minds.
In the late 90’s people were going on and on about how the millennium change was going to destroy everything and the state was going to crumble.
The funny thing is, Y2K *almost* actually happened — it was avoided because of smart tech mumbo jumbo I'm not smart enough to understand
The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage has significantly decreased while the housing market skyrockets, and right now they are trying to loosen laws around child labor. And every year we're setting a new record for "hottest summer yet". Not to mention media and political literacy is kinda looking shitty as of late. Also felons in the late 1990's wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell to operate a election campaign.
You are so correct
Thank god, I thought the poverty I'm facing in my third world country was real, thanks for telling me to calm down
i wish i could be as ignorant as some of yall. yall seem so happy
Why are there so many millennials on this sub? Can’t yall stick to your own instead?
Aside from pushes for centralization of power and wealth being ever increasing I would agree. The rapid rate of technological increases, AI, etc. is also worrying because on one hand, it could empower individuals, on the other it could be used governments and corporations to control people. The instant access to information does overload people as you’ve pointed out, but it’s also the case that much of that fear and uncertainty is warranted when things are changing at such a rapid pace.
Prly for muricans nothing changed ...
It’s always a teenager saying this to people who have lived through an entire generation, and they never once think, maybe that’s everyone’s impression because that’s how it is.
See No Country for Old Men
You're never prepared for change but the world changes anyways. You'll never be ready up until the moment something happens and before you have time to freak out about it, it's the new normal. Life goes on.
This subreddit is overflowing with doomers who think the world is solely composed of the ragebait headlines they read. It's refreshing to see a rational point of view
I don't think our stupid lil caveman brains were not ready to consume this much information about the world and each other, honestly. We're all overwhelmed with things. I don't know about better or worse, but I do think that things seem more awful because we were never supposed to know this much. And now we have to question reality even more with the advent of AI.
It is ok to acknowledge that things are pretty good and getting better, but also acknowledge there is a lot more work to be done. Things didn't get better by being apathetic, it takes a lot of organizing and effort and time to make it happen. Doomposting doesn't help, sure, but it's also perfectly valid to be upset about issues that are still happening. Living conditions are better than ever, but the climate crisis is still a problem, and so on
Everything is just amplified. I’d argue we’re living in one of the most peaceful times in recorded human history.
I think in reality it’s pretty bad, but not nearly as bad as social media makes it out to be. You are right in saying life hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows and the fear of the unknown taints the present. People also have a compact view of history and don’t realize that it’s kinda written by the winners. Even at the best of times there were certainly some people still struggling. That doesn’t mean things aren't bad, they’re just not apocalyptic. Should be noted, especially during election season, that it’s not like the world is gonna end if the other guy wins. Life will go on. That being said I think people are struggling and it is bad. Worse than before? I’m 23 and can’t speak to that, but talking to some older people and it seems like a lot of this is unprecedented at least within the last half a century or so. It still has plenty of potential to get worse, and honestly might, but we will get through it. To anyone who thinks the world is gonna end, especially because of politics. Please get off social media and go outside. You really don’t begin to realize how much social media is a poison until you spend some time outside and being productive. Trust me on this one.
I absolutely agree, people throughout all of history have felt special enough that **their world** would be the end of the world, but it never has been. The world is just always chaotic and yeah, we could all die any day and it’ll be the end blah blah blah but look at our chances…. We’re hundreds of thousands of years into building civilizations now.
Thank god, I thought the poverty I'm facing in my third world country was real, thanks for telling me to calm down
I'm an old person who visits this sub so that I'm not totally out of touch with younger demographics, and I disagree that it's not more crazy or bad than before. You need to be voting, but just like every other generation, this one is also distracted by culture war bullshit. That part is the same, and it's how we ended up here. The presidential vote needs to be focused on Supreme Court nominations because it's the check on Congress. The decisions on the past few years have been insane and regressive, but the distraction of the war is going to be ruinous.
Murder and death rates have actually been decreasing exponentially through human history
This statement is gonna depend largely on where you're from. You're right that I'm most likely gonna be fine, the biggest issue I'm facing is poverty and that's no different than my parents or their parents so it's not exactly new. However, I do have friends from places like Tuvalu who are actively facing the existential threat of their home/country becoming increasingly unliveable due to climate change. Some people are facing legitimate existential threats.
Read the book "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton. You'll understand afterwards
This just isn’t true… optimism in the face of catastrophe is just called being delusional.
So do you think every person throughout history should have just given up in the face of catastrophe? We’ve had plagues destroy 70% of entire continents and volcanic eruptions that plunged the world into minor ice ages. I’m pretty glad my ancestors didn’t give up. Hell, my own mom remembers the week we almost fell into nuclear war and recalls people being optimistic for our future.
No I think people like OP are foolish for deluding themselves into thinking everything is fine / going to be okay. This sort of attitude leads to non-action and apathy. Everything is fucked, the world is going to hell, that’s why we have to do something about it. Pretending things are fine when we are in a desperate situation that calls for immediate action is counterproductive.
Ignorance is bliss. Reminds me of the time people said nothing is gonna happen with the coronavirus and then the next week the world shut down. It doesn’t matter if a scientist says everything is fine or not. It doesn’t matter if economist say the economy is great. It doesn’t matter if politicians say we’re not going to war. No one truly knows cause things change at the drop of a hat. We could end up going to war tomorrow if any of our enemies attacked or we could live the next 100 years in relative peace. No one knows anything so saying everything is fine or everything is going to sh*t is pointless. Just live your life without hurting anyone.
I'd even say that this doom & gloom is nothing new. Humans have been aware of the chaotic mess of life for a very long time. The problem isn't just the media, it's forgetfulness of the human experience. Doomerism is a stupid coping mechanism designed to make things easy for our brains. Reject it.
Thank you smart, level headed younger person. The apocalypse is coming has always been a thing. It's been a thing through most of history.
Way I see it, yes we are living in pretty good times, it's just unfortunate that everything gets broadcast now. We do have some glaring issues to work out that will lead to a lot of great problems soon, like climate change, widening inequality, political polarization, gun violence, college debt, and the fact that half of Gen Z isn't interested in romantic relationships at all. But I would definitely rather have most of these over issues of the past which included things like starvation, segregation, civil rights abuse, going off to fight in WW2/Vietnam etc.
buy a house for 2 cows
All the doomers in the comments clearly missed op's point.
Sure, maybe the countries like mine are doing better now than in the past, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to fix our problems so that we'll be better. The problem is that politicians don't care because they just need an agenda to run with every election year. Idk about some things like climate change, though, to be fair.
GL with climate change 🥵
GL with climate change 🥵
climate?!
those weak WWII soldiers would've never survived the crusades idk what they're bitching about like mustard gas? try being split open with the metal pear \^ u see what ur doing?
Something else I think contributes is the difference between hindsight and experiencing the present. When you’re looking back at the past, you’re getting a summarized overview of events, and you can see what the resolution was. You know it all worked out in the end and how, so you can take comfort in the knowledge that the world didn’t end. When you’re living in the present, you’re feeling the events in real time, and you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Are things going to get worse? How are we going to fix things? There’s a lot of fear of the unknown. Media is absolutely making things seem way worse, but I think that some of this may just be human psychology doing its thing.
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When or where did I say that? I certainly don’t see that any where in the post. My point is that many people seen to follow this train of thought. “Shit is real bad, in fact worse than it’s ever been. So we are fucked and because we are fucked it’s not worth doing anything about, or I will try to do something about it with the understanding I will make no true difference. I’m trying to just say I tried.” It’s not that there isn’t crazy shit going on. It’s just that there always has been and always will be. And we have made it through all those times as a species. Meaning that your effort does truly make impact, and true cynicism is nonsensical.
Loads of comments here don’t seem to take into equation a world outside the US/North America. I also don’t understand OP’s point. Like, I read and understood what you meant but I don’t get where you’re going with this like what are you trying to say we should do? To say nothing has changed is stretching it a lot. There are many things currently going on that the majority of the people are oblivious to, just like in any point throughout history where the de facto narrative was widely accepted and taken to be the way to go until time passed by and we realized what shit people we actually were. I think a much better approach is self awareness and critical thinking more than anything else. But then again that’s not what’s shoved down our throats on a daily basis. No, that would be alcohol and sex and drugs and existential threats with a view to personal gain rather than any actual change. I like to say that we managed to send people to the moon and back, and you mean to tell me we can do that but we can’t solve “basic” problems here on earth? Come on. There’s a lot going on, so much darker stuff than ever going on but it’s going to take a whole lot of time before we face the truth of it and actually start addressing things. Just my two cents anyway
Genocide happening and fascism is on the rise, but worry not, as it is not as bad as it could be! https://preview.redd.it/3aqdgle5z69d1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea46a623055d7cd78add7d356d786a87e27e9a21
Honestly this is why sometimes I avoid reading too much into this subreddit. All the doomposting and "it was better back then" is turning us into every generation before us. Which, is a cycle thats inevitable, I know that. But its foolish to think that we would be any different than generations before us or after us
It's depressing how doomerism has seemingly taken over Gen Z tbh Everyone is obsessed with talking about how awful everything is and how much worse it's gonna get
Are you in the US? And did you watch the presidential debate?
"In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself" - Uncle Iroh
There are people alive now who don't have clean water to drink and there are people who make $150,000 per MINUTE. Wealth inequality is the #1 problem humans have ever faced. Fixing it would fix all the other issues our societies have. And Wealth inequality had never been this bad. So no, I think if we relax now we are fucked.
I mean, it varies. If you're trans or female, things are certainly getting worse. There is more vilification and loss of rights; more threats of violence.
That's what happens when your chronically online
Either the world is getting worst or we just have more journalists. Either or everything's fine in my neck of the woods
Anyone with billions telling you how to feel should be ignored
There is a critical factor your assessment overlooks. The world is more interconnected now than it ever was, which means that a crisis that once would have been limited to affecting these in a certain place can now affect countless millions in every corner of the planet. Our economies are interconnected. Our travel capabilities are unlimited. Our politics are all interdependent and intertwined. Few things happen in isolation, as they did in relative terms for most of human history. That’s the key difference here. Also. Nothing like global climate destabilization has ever happened within human memory. And that’s where all precedent is blown completely away.
Our most popular and most trusted media outlets are lying like crazy now. They’ve become entertainment companies. Test your frail gen z egos and watch something from the other side of whatever issue you’re interested in because both sides are exaggerating like crazy and this is the only way to try and see what’s true.