Casual Conversation

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.