I think it’s mass anxiety caused by uncertainty across the board.
Political uncertainty as far right and authoritarian movements pick up speed in various democracies.
Labor market uncertainties due to companies tightening their belts in the face of economic uncertainty, and trying to replace workers with AI.
Economic uncertainty due to wars disrupting energy and supply chains and the looming specter of recession/depression.
Geopolitical uncertainty due to several ongoing wars and several tense situations that could devolve into actual conflicts, not to mention the major paradigm shift happening where the US is actively ceding its position as a global leader to China.
Climate uncertainty as we refuse to address climate change and burn mountains of coal to power plagiarized chat bots.
The weirdest part is everybody is for the most part pretending everything is normal while silently being anxious on their own.
Honestly a lot of people around me are not pretending when you talk to them. They acknowledge it. They just dont know what to do on an individual level, trapped in their individual situations.
That’s been my experience as well. A lot of discussions that used to be an occasional hypothetical now happen more frequently and are a lot more brass tacky:
what do we do if the federal government collapses / splits? Flee or hunker down? Either way, where?
How are we going to get food and water over the next few years?
how do we keep ourselves and our neighbors safe from the snatchers?
how do we maintain supply lines for medications over the next few years?
We are all long on questions and short on answers. but the questions are bubbling up to the surface more quickly as more people catch on to the fact that the US is out of control. Donald Trump is literally building a bunker compound, or trying to anyway. He’s not leaving that office without a fight. The situation on the ground in the US is bad right now, but it’s going to get a lot uglier before it gets better.
I’m seeing it. A lot of people are shutting down discussing it anything…usually with the line of …I don’t talk politics.
The best you can do is remind them that their voice counts. They count.
That we are communities that outnumber the rich and oppressive.
That they can take small protections with their privacy.
The problem is we’re densely packed and scarce on resources. Humans adapted for that, because we populate insanely fast and would constantly hit the limit that land could support.
The downside is that adaptation was us killing each other in the absence of natural predators.
It’s all wired up inside of us, like the same neurochemical that causes group/family bonding making people (especially men) have very strong negative feelings about anyone they weren’t exposed to when young, because those groups didn’t make the cut for “in-group”.
None of this is new and it shouldn’t be shocking.
The oligarchs have been exploiting it for centuries. Everytime there’s one dude with everyone else’s money, he’s always pointing to an out-group member and blaming them.
We don’t have time to treat symptoms anymore, we need to fix the actual problem: oligarchs.
We have natural predators, they’re called billionaires. If your natural adaptation theory were true, we’d be instinctually wired to kill billionaires. But if we are, something is causing us to not.
The true problem is memetic. The billionaires and kings built memes to control us. Liberation will require a cultural shift. We need a culture of action and a culture of entitlement to what we deserve. We need to kill the neoliberal mind prison.
Bro we evolved to live in groups of a few dozen people and be hyper focused on physically present danger. How could an early human possibly conceive of billionaire; someone who personally holds more wealth that hundreds of millions of people.
There’s no neoliberal mind prison. People just focus on physical, tangible threats (a lack of healthcare, food prices) and not the vague concept of some guy with 9 zeros in a bank account who’s causing it (often indirectly with 2+ degrees of removal). We need to wake up to the fact that no shiny ideology will magically spawn cohesion among 8 billion people.
Republicans are defunding the schools so that people don’t have the intelligence to connect what they see and what they know. So they aren’t smart enough to see the connections.
The world is fucked, so someone fucked it. Everyone in the world can figure that out on their own, the logic is inexorable. The question is how various ideologies deal with that truth. The Democrats lie to us and say things are fine actually. The Republicans say it’s the gays and the foreigners fault. The centrists say it’s just complicated.
But the fact that Fox News can blame it on immigrants? Yeah, people feel something wrong in the world and they’re looking for someone to blame. Ideology and culture are what’s stopping people from blaming the rich.
the problem is, nobody is angry enough yet to do what needs to be done.
there is no peaceful solution to this problem. as soon as the oligarchs stop deserving to live in houses with unbroken windows and unburnt lawns, we’ll be ready for the solution.
I’m sorry to say this as an outsider looking in, but from looking at the news coming out of the UK and listening to people talking, the UK has had it pretty rough for most of the last 2 decades, if not beyond that. That’s enough time for some adults to feel like it’s been bad for most, if not all of, their lives.
People always complain and want better. But look at the good sides and put it into perspective - we have one of the best minimum wages on the planet and healthcare is free.
I don’t think complaining and wanting better is a bad thing though. If anything, I often find that a society that doesn’t complain and say things like “it’s better than nothing” often ends up with something shitty and putting up with it for far too long. Sure, appreciate the fact that we have what we do, especially cuase there were people that fought really hard for it, but we mustn’t get complacent.
I think it’s mass anxiety caused by uncertainty across the board.
Political uncertainty as far right and authoritarian movements pick up speed in various democracies.
Labor market uncertainties due to companies tightening their belts in the face of economic uncertainty, and trying to replace workers with AI.
Economic uncertainty due to wars disrupting energy and supply chains and the looming specter of recession/depression.
Geopolitical uncertainty due to several ongoing wars and several tense situations that could devolve into actual conflicts, not to mention the major paradigm shift happening where the US is actively ceding its position as a global leader to China.
Climate uncertainty as we refuse to address climate change and burn mountains of coal to power plagiarized chat bots.
The weirdest part is everybody is for the most part pretending everything is normal while silently being anxious on their own.
Honestly glad it not just me that realizes everyone is pretending
Honestly a lot of people around me are not pretending when you talk to them. They acknowledge it. They just dont know what to do on an individual level, trapped in their individual situations.
That’s been my experience as well. A lot of discussions that used to be an occasional hypothetical now happen more frequently and are a lot more brass tacky:
We are all long on questions and short on answers. but the questions are bubbling up to the surface more quickly as more people catch on to the fact that the US is out of control. Donald Trump is literally building a bunker compound, or trying to anyway. He’s not leaving that office without a fight. The situation on the ground in the US is bad right now, but it’s going to get a lot uglier before it gets better.
I’m seeing it. A lot of people are shutting down discussing it anything…usually with the line of …I don’t talk politics.
The best you can do is remind them that their voice counts. They count. That we are communities that outnumber the rich and oppressive. That they can take small protections with their privacy.
We are not powerless.
I told my wife i was feeling really anxious today. I think that freaked her out more than anything. She was like, “but you dont get anxious!”
Well damn love, today I am.
It’s the opposite for me. If I told my spouse I was feeling relaxed and calm she’d start to get worried.
Those are symptoms not the problem.
The problem is we’re densely packed and scarce on resources. Humans adapted for that, because we populate insanely fast and would constantly hit the limit that land could support.
The downside is that adaptation was us killing each other in the absence of natural predators.
It’s all wired up inside of us, like the same neurochemical that causes group/family bonding making people (especially men) have very strong negative feelings about anyone they weren’t exposed to when young, because those groups didn’t make the cut for “in-group”.
None of this is new and it shouldn’t be shocking.
The oligarchs have been exploiting it for centuries. Everytime there’s one dude with everyone else’s money, he’s always pointing to an out-group member and blaming them.
We don’t have time to treat symptoms anymore, we need to fix the actual problem: oligarchs.
We have natural predators, they’re called billionaires. If your natural adaptation theory were true, we’d be instinctually wired to kill billionaires. But if we are, something is causing us to not.
The true problem is memetic. The billionaires and kings built memes to control us. Liberation will require a cultural shift. We need a culture of action and a culture of entitlement to what we deserve. We need to kill the neoliberal mind prison.
Who told you I would not eat one on the spot? Could do the blackout rage defence as well, and it would probably pass.
Bro we evolved to live in groups of a few dozen people and be hyper focused on physically present danger. How could an early human possibly conceive of billionaire; someone who personally holds more wealth that hundreds of millions of people.
There’s no neoliberal mind prison. People just focus on physical, tangible threats (a lack of healthcare, food prices) and not the vague concept of some guy with 9 zeros in a bank account who’s causing it (often indirectly with 2+ degrees of removal). We need to wake up to the fact that no shiny ideology will magically spawn cohesion among 8 billion people.
Republicans are defunding the schools so that people don’t have the intelligence to connect what they see and what they know. So they aren’t smart enough to see the connections.
The world is fucked, so someone fucked it. Everyone in the world can figure that out on their own, the logic is inexorable. The question is how various ideologies deal with that truth. The Democrats lie to us and say things are fine actually. The Republicans say it’s the gays and the foreigners fault. The centrists say it’s just complicated.
But the fact that Fox News can blame it on immigrants? Yeah, people feel something wrong in the world and they’re looking for someone to blame. Ideology and culture are what’s stopping people from blaming the rich.
the problem is, nobody is angry enough yet to do what needs to be done.
there is no peaceful solution to this problem. as soon as the oligarchs stop deserving to live in houses with unbroken windows and unburnt lawns, we’ll be ready for the solution.
Correct
Well fuck me, that’ll do it
deleted by creator
Everything feels normal to me, is this a US specific thing? UK here.
Sure we have problems but nothing much worse than any other time in my life.
I’m sorry to say this as an outsider looking in, but from looking at the news coming out of the UK and listening to people talking, the UK has had it pretty rough for most of the last 2 decades, if not beyond that. That’s enough time for some adults to feel like it’s been bad for most, if not all of, their lives.
People always complain and want better. But look at the good sides and put it into perspective - we have one of the best minimum wages on the planet and healthcare is free.
UK standard of living has been declining for years.
Where isn’t?
I don’t think complaining and wanting better is a bad thing though. If anything, I often find that a society that doesn’t complain and say things like “it’s better than nothing” often ends up with something shitty and putting up with it for far too long. Sure, appreciate the fact that we have what we do, especially cuase there were people that fought really hard for it, but we mustn’t get complacent.