I've been looking for a job and jesus it's really gotten to me. Half the listed jobs are either the big tech companies like meta/aws etc. or defense contractors like lhm, northop-grummann or even dodgier glowie orgs. I'm pretty sure when such a large chunk of the economy is fucking defense contractors that it shows in the job market for something utterly unrelated (IT), that's fascism. Then I see they're selling off the UK military to palantir. Great.
It wasn't like this before. There were your goofy startups and your B2B SaaS companies, the latter I work for and it's been going under for years because it simply was never a good idea.
But that's just the straw that broke the camel's back because it was so real in a way reading news stories on the internet just isn't, it wasn't just a fact, it was an element of my life now, no different from the weather outside.
The absolute onslaught of anti-intellectualism, it's like a virus tearing through the population, a psychological blight, much worse than any coronavirus could be. The hypernormalization of it all and the sheer whiplash of the overton window has even got me shifting rightwards, through sheer osmosis and pressure.
Every time I hear my coworkers mention "grok" I get like a reaction, like "oh, that's the internet thing" and the compartmentalization of brain rot falters, I'm forced to acknowledge it is in fact - real, that what is going on is in fact real, and not just something I can laugh at. Being queer and an immigrant it's frankly shocking I've even been able to maintain this defense mechanism this long. My very future is on the chopping block, always has been, but maybe the city walls just can't stand the seige anymore.
But while I can take care of myself, I worry about the world, about others, distant and close alike. I don't need everyone to believe what I believe or align with what I think, but I feel insane at times because it seems like even the simplest rational thoughts are few and far between, everyone seems unhinged or some sort of insane grifter. It makes me want to grab the world and shake it like "why can't you just be normal".
And then there's people who plunge headfirst into the hypernormalization, realigning with the status quo, maintaining a pretense of continuity, when it is clear there's absolutely no real belief beneath. The pretense just intensifies to compensate.
Nonetheless I don't think there's much I can do, I don't know where to even start, I'd happily fight against the world that's coming but I can't do it alone, and it sure feels like I'm pretty much alone.
The burden of our time sucks, is all. Anybody got some good strategies to disconnect for a bit, so I can recuperate my psych defenses? Smell the roses and all?
EDIT: thanks everyone who responded. Think I'll check out of Lemmy for a bit, I'll make sure to read your insights and experiences when I get back. Thanks, and be well.
I worked both in goofy startups and a goofy corpo. It's essentially the same unless you trouble yourself with moral superiority thoughts, which can disturb you in both worlds.
If we don't have much choice, why trouble yourself with an imaginary dilemma of how to pay your bills? The real choice we now have is either to work for a corpo or to work for a military corpo. We haven't chosen the time to live, but at least we can choose the lesser of two evils
ⓘ 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘈𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘢. 𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘳.
I think, speaking from personal experience outside of the U.S., working for a small company gives you greater opportunity for influencing things. In a large corporation you're lost in a sea of faces and people, and you'll more or less always be readily replaceable. In a smaller company there's a different atmosphere and culture, and your word has a higher chance of carrying weight.
Granted, I say this from a very biased (and privileged) perspective as a Swedish worker. We have fairly strong labour laws, thanks to our unions. I realise that this is obviously not the same everywhere, even within EU. I've a decent idea of what working culture is like in say, Germany, and I'd rather not work there unless I absolutely had to, much to the bafflement of some of my American friends who view German work culture very positively because of the abuse they're used to taking.