I’m 43, almost 44, years old and went through a bought of alcoholism during the early part of the pandemic. I went through treatment and have been fine since. However, I can’t help but feel that all the news in the last few months is just the worst. Between the AI bullshit, the wars, the effects of capitalism, and the political situation in general it’s just the worst. Is it just me or have other folks noticed the same trend?
Edit: I should have also mentioned the enshitification of everything tech related.
Edit 2: Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. For some more context, yes I’m American and live in a state that’s about to ban the wearing of masks in public. I haven’t had a drink in over year and have been in therapy for 3 years. I don’t watch any news sources and rarely read media websites. But yet, that information seeps into my life somehow. I donate blood, I make charitable donations, and try to live a good life. I have 2 amazing kids and a great wife. It’s just hard to not end up in a doomer mindset at times. A Bitcoin company bought a power plant up here that has an existing lease to use a lake as cooling water, and it’s heated up the lake to the point that it’s killing fish.
Negativity and wedge issues sell. Keep your head up and don’t let them play you out. It’s all for money or power …or both. I think people just never wanted to see how dark reality is and now it’s showing how naive the common person is to the evil in the world.
It’s like all the horrible things they played out to be history or entertainment are actually real and that we were just told it’s all in the past so “tHeY” could keep us subservient with a false sense of security.
agreed, life is tough, but remember: we didn’t start the fire!
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Every time I see people try to blame the media on this, I look at my medical bills, I look at my bank account, I look at the temperature, I look at the cost of housing, I look at the vacant seats where my coworkers sat before they were let go, I look at the election results, I look at my sister who had her right to an abortion stolen, I look at the hateful people that vandalized my trans partner’s car…
And I think, damn…the media sure has some real reach, don’t they? They’re really going all out to make me miserable. I mean, this is some impressive commitment to a narrative. One day I’m gonna break free and live in this reality where “Everything is fine, actually” with the rest of you but first I gotta figure out how the media has me in the Truman Show situation.
Yeah, I can’t really put down all the bullshit in one post. When I say media that means the marketing companies that use it as tool as well. There’s a lot more to everything. Everything is so intertwined and deeply engrained. There is no good sides. All sides have good and bad. Etc… idk it’s paradox that can be investigated and thought over infinitely. …it’s life.
the media sure has some real reach, don’t they?
I mean, yeah pretty much. It’s been a few decades of sensationalism, anti-intellectualism, and capitalism-is-patriotism rhetoric, but we got here. It’s not entirely the media, but the media definitely has a huge impact.
Not everything is the worst. Just the important things.
Saiga antelope populations are recovering.
Crime rates dropping in US, multiple companies working with NASA for ISS access, direct observation of gravitational waves, left reddit for Lemmy, multiple COVID vaccines in like a year from outbreak, more usage of renewable energy sources, etc. There are some obvious problems we need to get together and address as communities, countries, and species, but there are a bunch of improvements and advancements being made too.
Massive drop in maternal mortality over the past century
This is enlightening. US maternal death rates compared to other industrialized nations.
That’s messed up
USA, 55th in the world overall, for maternal mortality in a 2018 study.
A fast look at the UNICEF data for 2020 shows 66th.
That’s behind the State of Palestine (61st), Moldova (46th), Albania (34th), Poland (3rd) and Belarus (1st).
https://data.unicef.org/topic/maternal-health/maternal-mortality/#data
Big yikes
Thanks for the data
The news is always like this. i recommend paying attention to the toilet instead
I think on a global scale we are all dealing with unresolved trauma from the pandemic, related catastrophes and the general economic roller coaster that we all live in every day. The severity of the pandemic lessened over time but there was no definite point where it ended and we all got to go “Wasn’t that nuts? Is everyone doing okay?” Instead it was just a slow crawl back to business as usual. We feel like we shouldn’t complain because it could be a lot worse but all of the other non-pandemic problems still exist and nothing seems to indicate that things will ever get better.
It’s not just you that feels this way, but that doesn’t mean things are hopeless. There are a lot of people out there fighting tooth and nail to build a better future in spite of all the challenges. Try to find a way to improve the world in your own small way. It really goes a long way to quieting those feelings of helplessness and despair.
I think you make a great point that we didn’t really get to an ending point from the pandemic trauma. For some of us, our nervous systems are still in panic mode.
But we also have the threats of climate collapse, global food and water shortages, a shift to the right or alt-right in several governments around the world, and technology being weaponized against us at an increasing rate. These threats to us are real. There are too many to list here.
To OP, please know that you are not alone. There are a lot of us who look at the state of the world and recognize the severity and criticality of these problems. My advice would be to get involved in something --anything – that helps or gives back to the community in some way. I started with donating blood. Will it change the world? No, but it helps someone, somewhere, and that helps my brain find peace.
Go touch grass = just dont think about how the world is going to shit. lol great advice everyone
Yes.
Yes, yes it has
I think a lot of the comments have really hit the nail on the head. Never hurts to take a step back and try to detox from the climate of negativity that inundates social media. Go out for a walk, go cycling, touch grass
Hmmm, yes. This grass… It feels very, grassy.
I’M HEALED!
I don’t think anyone would claim that literally going outside is gonna fix anyone’s life, or cure this broken-ass world we live in.
But the sentiment isn’t wrong.
It means: Take some time for yourself. Enjoy the small things. Exercise. Feel the sun on your face. Leave your phone in your pocket, and stop doomscrolling. See the world in your own terms, not the terms others want to force upon you.
It helps. You can’t change the whole world, but you can change yourself.
“the sentiment” is a fucking stupid slogan that NO ONE takes seriously.
Stop fucking sloganeering reality you twats.
I live in Scotland, I haven’t seen the sun since I went on vacation over a year ago!
Hooray! 🙌🏻
You’re telling’ me. The amount if “once in a lifetime” crises I’ve experienced is too damn high. I’m going to be 30 this year and I’ll never be able to afford a house.
If it makes you feel any better I’m 40 and I’ll never afford a house either. Millennials got screwed.
No it doesn’t, you deserve a home.
As mentioned by other commentators, negative, emotional news sell the best and the news nearly perfected this method during the last couple of years. Yes, it isn’t as good as pre pandemic times, but it’s not the worst. For me it really helped to limit my news time to max. once a day (like in the past with the newspaper in the morning or a news show in the evening) and watching things called “good news”. In Germany some TV shows have this category so I never searched it on social media or YouTube, but I bet there are some channels/pages dedicated to good news (like there is a new treatment for disease XY or here is a good step in the fight against climate change, but sometimes just news like “the big panda isn’t as endangered as it was”.
"Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
For millenials who have had it timed perfectly to get fucked over by the way of it all our entire life, and when the power is taken back it’ll skip over and be the next generation that follows… Sweet spot generation of pure fuck-assery after being promised an entirely different world. The revolution is coming… It had better. In my opiniom, the best you can do is focus on a more personally enriching life, and forget everyone else’s bullshit.
Graduated in 07. Gave all of my savings to my parents in 08 so they wouldn’t lose their house. Bumbled around for a decade and a half trying to get a degree and start my career only to get shit canned from an okay paying job mid-pandemic. Tripped over my own dick in to a great paying union job. Currently working too much overtime and saving every dime I can because I’ve seen enough shit.
There have been many times in history when things have been far worse, so no, it’s not the worst. But many things are in decline right now. Democracy, digital privacy, trustworthiness of information, global peace, climate, the environment… humanity has to get back on track soon or the future looks pretty grim.
Only one thing can be the worst. Grammatically everything else is just bad.
