Asklemmy

Your perspective is distorted, things are incredible and getting better by most metrics.

• The average person today lives better than kings of old.
• We have abundant water, food, and sanitation. In America, food is so subsidized that it is ridiculously cheap by historical standards.
• Your odds of dying to violence or disease have never been lower in all of human history.
• You have all human knowledge at your fingertips, and technology is expected to keep improving our lives in novel ways.
• You can visit any place on Earth in a matter of hours and have access to cheap exotic foreign goods.
• Civil rights are protected a lot more today than they were in many/most civilizations of the past.
• Entertainment is abundant and cheap, and takes forms that people of the past could only dream about.

While we certainly have our challenges to overcome, like climate change, wealth inequality, and social problems, let's not forget how good we have it.

I just stopped caring. I just want a meal a day and do stuff to not be bored.

Being the history nerd I am, I tell myself that this has happened before. Think of the Bronze Age Collapse or the Fall of Rome. For people who lived back then, it probably felt like the end of the world. But after many generations, they still managed to rebuild. I must keep going in order to document as much history as possible for future generations in the case that humanity survives all this crazy shit that is going on.

I'm doing good. I'm doing things that I enjoy, and I strive to improve. I believe we'll sort most of our shit out, it will never be even close to perfect, because we're dumb, materialistic, belligerent apes by nature, but it will be enough.

I find great comfort in history personally. Dan Carlin (a favorite podcaster of mine) always says we must grade history on a curve. Sure, to us it looks like everything is falling apart and existence is pointless. But by very real measures things are better than they have ever been. My favorite is violence against children has been normalized as being bad.

Within living memory it has gone from being completely socially acceptable to beat children as being the preferred method of parenting to people getting thrown in jail for that behavior. What does it mean that previous to 100 years ago all of society could have been considered battered children? We are extremely aware of the negative effects of violence against children and for the very first time we are seeing a generation raised in an environment that kind of behavior has carrots and sticks motivating parents to behave properly. Of course all manner of horrid things still happen, but I call it progress that it have become widely condemnable to beat a child with a stick or take them to public hangings. It's a small victory, but it gives me hope for the future. That we may yet still build a better human being capable of taking on the heroic task of fixing this world.

Further, history has shown to me low points that I am glad to have missed. I never knew how ghastly WWI was. I am currently in a warm bed and not in a trench filled with mud, flys, dead body parts, with shells exploding constantly, seconds away from needing to charge out into near certain death. But my great grandfather knew that feeling. He watched as whole generations of young men were gassed to death and blown up uselessly. The numbers who die in war are less now. Still tragic, but less. Again, we must grade on a curve.

Death, despair, and hopelessness may be in 8K live streamed constantly now, but I assure you the analog version was something to behold. Not saying the horror of the past makes living any easier now. It is not to minimize your own pain. I just find hope that others managed to break the back of an unshakable world and hope for a better one while surviving a suffering I have not yet known. I am made of the same stuff. That gives me strength.

I cope with the US falling further by not living in the US, unfortunately I'm just privileged like that, sorry.

I have a few friends over there, and the state of things absolutely breaks my heart.

Depends on perspective. Ask my grandma who lives through the second world war whether it is better or worse. Our modern problem seem trivial to her comparing having no non-bombed house, very little food and very little way of taking care of her family.

I fully embrace the fact and wonder what will be ruined next.

Some very good replies here. I share some of your worries, but with some recent issues I have also gotten a lot of practice seeing the good in things. Consider these 2 angles:

First is the Louis CK routine that includes “Everything is amazing and nobody is happy.” I think it comes down to humans getting used to things that work well and taking them for granted. Compared against most people who have ever lived, we are genius magical wizards who live in luxury. Unfortunately some of our magical technologies let us see the bad shit all around the world (and close to us) that our brains haven’t evolved to deal with.

Second is how absurdly unlikely and unique the existence of our consciousness seems. We are a collection of atoms forged in inconceivably massive exploding stars billions of years ago, aware of its own existence. We are literally the universe experiencing itself.

Sadly, I have taken moves to grow as much as I can, tend to chickens for eggs, and start just pulling back from my community because they are really terrible. Really, I should be building the community and mutual aid but the amount of people that care about nobody but themselves around here is just too high.

It is getting better though. We are all just facing the issues of our era's.

Tech keeps going up, we are slowly making progress on climate change, the space race is back on, and superpowers don't directly fight eachother anymore. Hell, we've proven to beat once in a century pandemics in a few years with relatively speaking barely any deaths. Life's good

Yes, we have squabbles in the middle east and Africa, but that's par for the course and not an indicator for human development. The only thing that has really gone backwards is that war has been brought back to europe

The world is getting better. There are some setbacks, yes. But there are lots of normal people making the world a better place, like the guy who figured out how to make artificial glaciers with river water in India, or the guy who recently built a forest on arid land by refining local techniques in Burkina Faso. Things will be okay!

I just hope no wars will be started over here (western Europe) in the next ten years, so my sons won't get drafted.

I take comfort in getting older and getting closer to being dead.

I can barely wait. The comfort of nothingness is a great help.

I've put an ocean between myself and the US.

There are a lot of good news all the time. For example: I'm pro veganism and always heard that vegans make up about 2% of the population. Recently I heard that specifically in my city about 8% are vegans. That's amazing!

Just trying to be a lamp in the darkness.

shrug and say that things will have to get worse before they get better

I just try to enjoy each day as I can without making the world any worse than I can help.

Nihilism and cannabis

Well I eat quite unhealthy, so I'm thinking I'll probably die earlier then most. Sooo I guess I got that going for me.

Life's pretty good here in Australia. No neighbours on the border causing problems, weather is generally good, lots of wide open empty nature to get out of the city, average salary is $93k and unemployment is low, crime is low. Inequality is a problem although our Gini coefficient has actually lowered recently. There's a lot of life to enjoy, and really the endless stream of negativity is only experienced through the media, not in real life, so I switched off the TV and just focus on what's going on around me, enjoying the people, places and activities that I like, and things feel quite positive.

Turn off the news, it's bad for the psyche.

By trying to get involved with politics. I'm part of a political party, but want to be involved more though. I also participate in protests sometimes, but want to participate in direct actions as well.

Pretty well. The resistance lives. We are all part of it.

I'm not in a position to affect change in a powerful way. So I try to stay educated and informed, I vote at the ballot box, I vote with my wallet, I donate what I reasonably can to places where I think it will help, and I speak out when it's appropriate to do so.

Personally I am not really worried. Maybe I am in denial but I think a lot of the negative stuff is way over exposed with 24/7 news cycle and crazy social media.

Bad news and anger drive engagement metrics the best so that is all you will hear about.

So everything I hear I just automatically assume it is way over blown and I should lower the worry factor.

If it is getting overwhelming I would recommend you unplug yourself for a little while and do something you enjoy.

2023 has some amazing games come out maybe pick on of those up and give it a try?

Substance abuse :)

Got news for you, if you're working class, being white or male will not let you "coast right through" the inevitable boom/bust cycles that will befall the economies. You'll be under the boot like everyone else.

Understanding the historical circumstances I find myself in and devoting the majority of my effort in to things I can control.