Ask Lemmy

This will probably be the calmest year of the years to come.

Russia, the US and EU are failing slowly, with Russia and the US kicking around in the process. The EU doesn't really know what to do except follow suit to the US, no matter the stupidity.

Aside from these three China seems to be emerging for now, but is running into huge demographic issues that the others already have.

Neoliberal Capitalism is destroying the very foundations of society and leading to a new rise of Fascism as it is ideologically way too deeply entrenched to overcome itself and the mantra of eternal growth and eternal capital accumulation at the top.

On top of all this the climate catastrophe is picking up intensity every year and the effects will cause more and more disruption.

Meanwhile any attempts at spearheading a better world, one of sustainable economies and basic human rights are disrupted by the forces of old, who employ ever more gruesome weapons and tools of mass surveillance while refusing any social innovation.

To answer your question: Yes it is overwhelming and it will probably get a lot worse.

Someone ... or a new artist should just release a new version of the song with new lyrics every year

But to your question ... I'm Indigenous Canadian, so from the day I was born, I've always been overwhelmed by the world because most of it, especially living in northern Ontario was a government that either actively or passively just wanted us to either disappear, assimilate, go away or just die.

I've always seen the world as falling apart. I remind my friends when we debate this stuff that the human species has been around for about two million years, a species that looks like us was around about 100,000 years ago and the most modern ancestor that could think, act and be like us is about 50,000 years ago. We've only just started our technological evolution about 200 years ago. So when you think about it, we are more designed as prehistoric cavemen and cavewomen who are easily scared of shadows in the dark or what happens after we die. We have only just taken our first step out of the cave we all used to inhabit. It's going to take us a few more thousand years to get to the point where our brains can process and live with the modern world we created .... that is if we last that long. In the meantime, we'll just fumble along trying to become temporary Masters of the Universe on our tiny speck of floating dust in the galaxy.

To put things into perspective ... listen to Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot

Or watch the cartoonist Steve Cutts A Brief Disagreement

The thing that is pissing me off these days is not so much that the world is falling apart ... it always has been for me ... its that we are accelerating the amount of danger we are putting all of humanity ... and for what? a little bit of profit and for a small group of people to say they can rule the world?

Yes, so I am overwhelming myself with good stuff so I don't have as much time to let that stuff bother me.

I joined an animal rescue that I work at every Sunday and busy my butt there. I also started participating in community events with other people through my music teacher, so I've always got new songs to work on. These national protests also have a more uplifting vibe than I'd expected, so I'd like to participate in more of those too.

So I'm feeling better about my own actions, developing more skills, helping my environment, giving entertainment back to my community, and seeing hundreds of other people that also want this place to be a bit better.

Sure the news is still a total buzzkill, but I can only dwell on it so long. I put off doing these things for so long saying I didn't have time or energy, but now they are wonderful healthy distractions, and even if we do pull out of this tailspin, I'd love to keep doing all these things anyway.

Don't let jerks keep you down. We can't stop all of it, but we can all find some way to be useful and successful, and other people seeing you carry on will keep them motivated too!

No.

The world is run by capitalism, and you have to remember that unhappy, anxious people spend more, while dead people don't spend anything.

Turn off the news. Turn off the social media. Go for a walk. It's nice outside. None of this shit has manifested there.

Well, unless you're in America and you look vaguely foreign. Maybe don't go for a walk in that case.

No, not really. I’m more overwhelmed by the fact I knew very little about the past. I deep dived into couple of things and now wonder the sanity of humanity.

Also the fact that people just do not learn from the past. People rather ignore all the things and repeat it again, again and again.

I have even become more pessimistic about humanity than, I already was. Because of this, I tend to avoid the news a bit more to at least keep my mental health in check.

Nope.

There's nothing I can do to change it apart from trying to do good in my own little neighborhood, so that's what I do.

Honestly? I think if you had access to social media for any time in the last 100 years you would feel overwhelmed. The nature of the beast is there is ALWAYS something happening. There's ALWAYS something to be angry about.

Of course. It’s not the path you want to take. But I’m old enough to remember similar times and the future isn’t written yet.

I feel overwhelmed by how the world apparently went today

I mean as a Canadian, I knew that was coming since early last year if Trump would win. I couldn't know where we would land on the spectrum between nothing changed and Armageddon. What I did know was that, without fail, I would hear what stupid thing Trump did just about every day in the news, and it would be overwhelmingly exhausting.

I have three pieces of advice. First, connect with the people around you offline, reinforce your ground truth. Second is keep your eyes on the ball of what you want to be better in the world so that you can keep going after it. Lastly, don't let right or left wing online propaganda, or the despair from crises the US, Israel, Russia, China or North Korea stir up paralyze you from taking action on those two things.

Honestly: no.

There are only so many things I can focus on at once and I’m quite good at not letting the others affect me.

Work, kids and friends take most of my time. My «crisis» of choice to stay updated on is Ukraine. Everything else I read on now and then, when I feel like it.

I quite enjoy just touching grass and being in the moment instead of stressing about things I have no control over.

I was brought up by my parents who were both in WWII. I was told on the daily all about fascism until I was a teen. I saw countless media about the war that has not been seen since the 90’s.

I had first hand reports from my mom about when she was at the docks with the soldiers who had returned from Normandy. When she went to help them off the boat their skin would slide off. Who in the world wants fascism again. Sadly quite a few it seems. Most I do not think can comprehend what they are rooting for.

My brain is so fucked up right now. I feel like I am in a fever dream or I got zapped to a different world in the multiverse.

All i know is i didn't start this fire

It's not about how we feel but what we do about it

America invading the Middle East and Israel committing genocide has been the staple my entire life.

World’s going to shit due to climate inaction.

The only change here is Russia and Ukraine, and that’s been ongoing for years now.

I don’t feel overwhelmed, this all feels normal to me.

I'm upset by many things going on in the world but I'm not overwhelmed because there are no relevant decisions for me to make. Look at it this way: what's the difference between reading a book that says Genghis Khan killed a hundred more people than you thought he did centuries ago and reading a newspaper that says a hundred people died in some catastrophe yesterday? In both cases, you've learned that total strangers died in the past, there was nothing you could have done, and there will be no direct effect on your own life. It's natural to be more upset by the more recent deaths (and I admit that I would be) but I think it isn't logical.

The exception to that is AI. I think I do need to change my own life in order to increase my chance of thriving in an AI-dominated future, at least because if some jobs will still exist then I'll need to be able to do one of them.

(I suppose "Do I flee the country?" is another decision I technically need to consider, but the answer is "No unless things get dramatically worse." Thus there isn't much to think about on a daily basis.)

We will be busy entertaining ourselves, dulling our senses and denying what's happening right until the very point of collapse. "No one" will see it coming.

Since there's fuck all you can do about it, might as well join in the festivities.

REM has a more appropriate song.

Hoping to get into numismatics professionally. That or teaching. My SO is a teacher and there's a shortage hereabouts, has been for years.

3.0 will be done by the Fallout boys

My fav is the mailman ❤️