Solarpunk

However, there are things within people’s control that doesn’t change. At work, I listen to a coworker frustrated about a simple problem. It would be a simple change to make this person’s job much less painful, but he “just works here”. It’s just such a dumb problem to waste hours of someone’s life on.

Does solving that problem threaten their access to food and housing? Capitalism doesn't care about negotiating the most profitable deals, it cares about maintaining power dynamics, so the company cares more about keeping employees in a servant role than improving their bottom line, so employees are often unable to make their life better without threatening their own livelihood and those of their colleagues.

Capitalism has existed alongside people with good intentions for centuries now. It has many ways of bending kindness into accumulation of power for the rich. Helping people out means people will be less likely to riot when social services get cut, so the rich are more likely to cut social services and lower taxes. So it takes almost no work at all for the system to turn charity into a wealth transfer from the charitable to the rich.

If you want to improve the world, you have to be clever about it. You have to choose things that the rich can't just leverage into exploitation - things that they would pay to get rid of, not things they would pay to exist. Mutual aid networks, labor unions and other unions, exchange of anarchist ideas and skills, blockades and sabotage, decreasing the number of hours people work at things capitalists would have paid for them to do, etc.

There are people who are cynical to a fault, who have more faith in capitalism's ability to exploit you than your ability to circumvent undermine it. But realistic cynical skepticism is warranted, and you need to be careful that your good intentions actually produce good outcomes.

The despair you feel toward the average person's lack of interest or outright dismissal of these very real problems is unfortunately common. As others have said, the magnitude of the problems we face is often paralyzing. How to begin addressing these massive problems was a question asked by a mother to Noam Chomsky in 1992, and I think his answer still holds up quite well. One of his big points is that it's pretty much impossible to tackle any of this alone, you need a group to brainstorm ideas on how to solve things and not feel so helpless as a single individual surrounded by a sea of uncaring people.

In a way, this community, slrpnk.net, and even the fediverse as a whole is acting as a place for people to come together and know that they're not entirely alone, though finding a group in real life who shares your values would allow you to really start enacting change, even if on a small scale.

Unless you are working at a cooperative, people are getting paid for their hours not for their labor. You absolutely should not improve things at work in any way unless you can get value out of it, because doing so feeds capitalism at the expense of everything else. Capitalism is a game where each side tries to get the maximum value out of the time. The capitalist wins when they maximize the value of your time, the worker wins when they maximize the amount of money they get for the minimum effort.

Some people are overwhelmed, some people are just trying to survive. A lot of people see that any effort they put in making things better, like at work, will just be turned against them to make the world worse. It's really hopeless sometimes. A lot of time there just isn't any space in people's lives to even think outside survival.

But don't confuse masking for happiness. People are angry and depressed. Very very few people are happy with the world the way it is. A lot of folks have just given up. People telling you that you should give up only want to feel better about their own failure, their own acquiescence to the void. Trauma does this to people. It traps people. It makes people give up. It makes people feel hopeless. It makes people uncreative. It makes it hard for people to believe in the possibility of hope.

Your work is probably not the place to focus on improving things, unless you're either working in a cooperative or you're organizing a union.

Personally, I think we're all thinking about this whole thing wrong. Capitalism is a death cult. But in spite of that, we have hope. We have faith that we can create a better world, and we have evidence that is true. The world we live in is full of zero-sum games, games that pit us against each other. When we can turn these games into non-zero-sum games, games of cooperation, we can change everything. Capitalist labor markets are zero-sum because whoever wins it's always at the expense of the other player (spoiler, the game is rigged for capitalists to win almost all the time).

The choice to cooperate or compete is similar to the prisoner's dilemma. There is a clear optimal strategy for a single game of the prisoner's dilemma: betray your opponent. But things get interesting when you play multiple times. Iterated prisoners dilemma (that is, playing the game multiple times while knowing all the previous moves) flips that strategy, making the optimal strategy one of guarded cooperation.

The secret here is that you need to have other people. At a high enough density, cooperation defeats competition. The better news is that you are here. From this core, we can support each other in building this world. We can continue to support bringing hope into the world.

There's a book called Change: How to Make Big Things Happen. It's about how movements happen. At first they are invisible, or small. But at a certain point they cascade and move very quickly. I'd recommend reading this book to think about how everything changes. I'd also focus locally. The thing that snaps people out of this hopelessness is actually just seeing what is possible. Make something that seems impossible happen. Start small, and build from there. What solar punk thing can you make real?

Can you start a tool library? What about even just a media library among friends? What's the smallest thing you could do to bring a bit of the solar punk world you want into the current dystopia? Do one thing to prove it's possible, then see what becomes possible next.

You do what you can. Doing something, no matter how small, is better than doing nothing.

You do what you can, and no more. Don't burn yourself out or work yourself into an early grave. Show compassion to yourself.

Ally with people who share your concerns. It's easier to get things done as a group, and you'll have support that way. You keep talking to people who don't care, and that's ruining your morale. Find people who do care.

A lot of people don't know they are supposed to make the world better. A lot know but don't know how to. Still others know but don't have the capacity left after just surviving. But there is a significant subset who knows and don't care, they just chase more dollarbucks.

I'm also struggling with this, I feel like I lost a piece of myself and I've been grieving a lot of this year with this realization.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I know there are many people feeling similar. And I have some thoughts that help me not to give up hope.

1. change doesn’t come fast, it’s growing slowly under the actions small or big of people who want it.
2. there are likeminded people in the world. We are not the majority but we are not alone
3. there is no alternative to aim for a better, healthier world. Even if it looks dark, giving up is not an option
4. go on your own pace. Small steps can make the difference. Don’t expect major changes. Revolutions happen once in 100 years, even less I guess.
5. find at least one or two friends or comrades who share your values. Join a union or a political movement, try to engage and find your place.

For the longest time, I could have written out these thoughts of yours almost verbatim myself. I hear you, and I believe I know that pain very well.

I've recently clawed my way out of that mindset, mostly. A total, unrelated stranger on the Internet now suggests you try the same, for your own mental health and The Greater Good™ alike. I'll share my own story instead of preaching to the choir, with the faint hope of giving faint hope that there at least exists a way out of this mental mess you're in.

I was almost afraid of being thought of as naïve, considered it a weakness to not show. Cynicism was my shield. Nevertheless I always went and still go out of my way to be a "good guy", in the most inconsequential ways. Don't picture the ranting, vitriolic uncle here nobody wants to be with in the same room, I kept this negativity pretty much to myself and only let it out in controlled drips of sarcastic jokes. I, too, was convinced that humanity surely is doomed, if only for it's insufferable ignorance, and by extension do whatever I can to support those precious few who I deemed as "not lost" in all the ways I could. Voluntary extinction of humans seemed like a pretty swell concept, overall.

I did organize convention security of Eurofurence for more than a decade, going from ~150 to thousands of attendees. All staff are unpaid volunteers. I just recently realized how the "staff side" of the convention is a practical, well-working example of a practically anarchistic collective organisation (yes, security, too) managing a metric shit-ton of complex stuff just for a few thousand fellow furry queers to have fun for a week, and paying €1000+ and PTO for the privilege to boot. You may rightly assume I have seen a fair shit of crazy stuff, first hand, but violence, hate, or even just ignorance? I can count those on one paw, over all these years combined. Even trouble with "outsiders" in Berlin Mitte clashing with the colorful crowd was very limited and ultimately civil.

It took me this long to reflect how this personal experience is NOT a glitch in the Matrix, but actually the "resting state" of human consciousness. People are, in an exceeding majority, "good". I cannot ignore a decade of first-hand (anecdotal, granted) experience and further tell the lie of "people are ignorant, assholes, or both". They are not. People are however, broken. Like me. Possibly, like you. By "truths" about "reality as it is", colported by profiteers of misery or other broken souls trying to dilute their pain by finding, nay, creating company to normalize their struggle and feel a tiny bit better. Not out of spite or hate, mind you, but to soothe themselves and survive in a world that is perceived as harsh, uncaring, and downright belligerent. Which it is, for many out there. But it is not "the world" we are up against— the hedgehogs dozing off in the pile of autumn leaves didn't raise your rent last week. Neither did your neighbor, or the Mexican lady three cities over making ends meet. Why can't "they" see that and do something? Likely the same reason why I can't do a lot of things, I lack the energy. Instead of being on the streets or organizing a local repair cafe, I'm typing a stream of consciousness into the void on the Internet. Whoop-de-doh! I'm such a revolutionary! Welp, there's the sarcasm again. :)

If you're wondering how to pay for your damn food, shelter, and medicine tomorrow all day, every day, you literally cannot concern yourself with a long-term solution. You are eternally stuck in stopping the bleeding, and cannot focus on the guy stabbing you over and over again. It is too late, you'd bleed out if you shift focus now.

"You keep them dumb, I'll keep them poor." said the King to the Pope. And then propagandize this status quo as the only way to survive, with no alternative, and your survival is constantly at risk from... well... whatever threat we can conjure up.

So. If one agrees, at least roughly, with this (gesticulated wildly) being our shared reality, we have also established that people are, by a large margin, victims in need of help, but afraid to ask for it. This is why I follow the guideline of unconditionally offering help in whatever way I can.

There is no shortage of need for any kind of assistance or help in the world. It's a seller's market for positivity and aid out there, and it's up to you to set the price as low as you can.

No effort in that direction is ever "wasted", as some want you to believe. For every beneficial action you take, no matter how tiny, is a SHITLOAD of eager and needing recipients. Plucking the candy wrapper from the ground? Pointless, right? Surely inconsequential. Not when scaled up by the thousands. Smile at people, just because you are going to interact with them, and set the vibe. It's ridiculous how many people are visibly starved for a sliver of positive, human interaction, particularly in retail jobs, for obvious reasons.

Once I began actively looking for the effects of my "inconsequential" actions, I realized that the opposite is true. The act of giving freely, unconditionally, and convincingly is the only way to reach those in need who are convinced they don't deserve anything, or nothing would help them, anyway. It's difficult to target aid, hence the 'obvious" pointlessness of it all, but an indiscriminate shotgun approach definitely, eventually hits some of the good people, you just won't notice it right away. For them, however, any bit of empowerment is very real and sorely needed. Do not underestimate the power of decentralized action, it isn't limited to Lemmy. :)

If you stop anyone's bleeding for a moment, they may muster up the energy and focus one day, to give the stabby guy a little push. And take a figurative breather, for the first time in years. And then use that new-found strength to maybe, eventually, throw a punch.

I decided to be a part of that avalanche, from my very privileged position, instead of betraying myself and what I desire to be, in order to feel "normal" and be part of a "normal society" that doesn't actually exist in the callous form so many claim it to "just be". Fuck 'em if someone considers me naïve for believing in the possibility of creating a net positive with my life, even if we're on a doomed ride into oblivion. At least enjoy the view, then, you've got nothing to lose but your prejudice.

Okay, I'm done, this is getting ridiculous.

TL;DR: Don't give up, so many more people are "good", every action has consequences, even if unseen.

Reminder. 2/3rds of the Internet is bots or paid people in other countries.

I'm not saying this to make you feel better. I'm telling you because it's true.

Trust your conversations with real people in real life.

Don't assume the discord online reflects real people's beliefs.

Go to protests and talk to people.

There are more good people than bad in the world.

I'm there.

I've tried to live like compassion is a renewable resource. Well, mine ain't.

And you don't have to apologize for generalizing me. I'm sad, tired, and worn out and sick of it.

... like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.

I'm basically stuck in a Bilbo-like ARRRGGGHH! reaching for the ring from Frodo at Rivendale. I'm no longer reaching for the ring but my being is stuck in that look and my heart and soul are dead.

I'm sorry that retracting into myself is the only safe space that I have left.

And I'm sorry.

People do care. But there are a lot of people. Not everyone does.

When one does things, you end up with other people who do things. Won't be your neighbor, won't be your colleagues (unless you do the Good Thing™ professionally) so do not waste time trying to convince them.

Do your own thing. Life is short and there are billions of people out there. Spend it on the millions that want change, that's a big enough crowd.

This isn't new.

The realisation as you go through life that things just aren't as good as they should be is hard. The more you learn, the more you are exposed. What is new, perhaps, is that the scale of bullshit is bigger and the spread of it more actively pushed than before.

How to cope? Damned if I know. I just try to shut it out as much as possible.

(BTW, your colleague may just be exhausted with change, or demoralised or depressed themselves. It's hard not to judge people when you see the answer so clearly, but it's a trueism that everyone walks their own path and you just don't know what's going on in their life)

My original post comes out of a place of deep sadness, so I didn't take much time in proof reading. I should have been more precise in my words on the internet. 😓 I'm sorry for generalizing.

The only person you can control is yourself. Do what you know needs to be done, set the examples for others, but place no value on whether they see you or not. The effect of your actions will be apparent.

I feel exactly the same way! I’ve been struggling to accept this fact for years and years. Really the only thing that’s helped is looking far and wide for like minded people, as few as there are, and chat them up so I don’t feel so alone in my thinking. If ever you want to share your feelings and talk about the ways you’re trying to live a life of integrity and long term thinking, I’d love to chat!

I think a lot of it is people are struggling to just survive. Barely making ends meet, putting food on their own table and a roof over their head. There are probably many people that wish they could do more, but don’t have the time or resources to do anything more.

You have to remember we aren't all that far away from cavemen. Some 10,000 years ago we were hunting and gathering. That's only somewhere between 100 and 200 generations of modern humans. We still have alot of the traits that were important for survival like greed and tribalism. People simply havent had enough time to evolve to this world of abundance, technology, knowledge, laws, and so on.

I'd argue they don't care because they aren't issued the resources necessary to care. Our workers also don't have enough time / energy to parent or to engage in their civic duties of working out what is in their best interests and voting accordingly. Let alone the impetus to imagine a better world and strive for it.

It's difficult to say if this was intentional all along, or just a happy(?) accident of overworking our labor force out of sheer greed,¹ but it belies the drift of abusive systems towards greater dysfunction, which is why we need ironclad protections against labor abuse.

Not that we're going to get it necessarily without blood...or with blood for that matter. It's why violent revolution is on the table since the masses can't afford the time and energy to conduct non-violent protest.

I'd credit our oppressors for being thorough, but they really aren't all that bright, so I no longer give them the benefit of the doubt.

¹ We now have studies that show a well-treated labor force is worth the extra expense, from sheer productivity increase alone. Our upper management is just too short-sighted, too divisionist and too paranoid to bother to make their companies worth putting the effort in for, even though optimizing for profit is their job description.

Whenever I'm struggling with the fact that everything is bullshit, I try to remind myself that there isn't that much stopping me from living my own life as if I was already living after the revolution, or in utopia, or after the apocalypse, or whatever you want to call it or think it might be. Ultimately, I want to hang out with my dogs, garden, hike, cook, listen to and play music, hang out with friends, run rivers, ski, etc. etc. All achievable now, mostly. Do I also have to do bullshit I don't want to? Sure. Are a lot of other people living in a crappy way and doing stupid and destructive bullshit? Definitely. But for the most part, if you just do what you can and try to live your life as if you already won the war, it's pretty ok.

I wouldn't necessarily say people don't care. I don't think they have the capacity to care. I think there's so much going on in their lives and right in front of their faces that they can't even see what's happening.

That doesn't make the solution any better though...

I think of it as situational, in your orbit, you have coworkers wasting time on simple problems. In other parts of the world, in remote villages, solar is changing people's lives for the better.

I have known too many people lost in their own bubbles of reality, never considering the larger picture and impacts of personal choices. They are the majority, unfortunately.

Just focus on what you can do for yourself, find like minded people to share on larger efforts, and don't waste your own time and energy (especially emotional) on people that never put in a second thought into efforts for improving the world.

People don't and won't care until more their more immediate and drastic problems will be resolved. I'm happy for you, you're not too empathetic, you're simply privileged enough to care about such things. Meanwhile people who have no civil rights see vegans as class traitors, people being bombed would roll their eyes 360° at a mention of fighting light pollution, etc etc.

Activists of the privileged world. Your preaching audience is forever limited to about half of the population more privileged than you. If you want others to care about what you consider problems, SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS FIRST.

(steps off a soapbox to use it as a makeshift shield)

@aka I don't have any answers but I feel the same way. The oddest thing for me, as a child-free person, is that people who ~have~ had kids don't want to leave a better society or a liveable planet for their children and grandchildren.

I get it and I have felt similarly. I get annoyed that people don't put in the recycling right but then I also look at the recyclying rules and realize the company that does it is pretty much setting it up to fail and are itching to just dump it. Its hard to reduce, reuse, recycle and I look at the folks who can't return a grocery cart and realize they are not likely trying. My economic situation prevents me from having as energy efficient lifestyle as I would like (being able to purchase or remodel my place on more efficient lines). It sucks but im going out trying to be as least responsible for this mess as I can be.

At work, I listen to a coworker frustrated about a simple problem. It would be a simple change to make this person's job much less painful, but he "just works here". It's just such a dumb problem to waste hours of someone's life on.

This person is aware that the only reward for fixing the problem is more work. He’s still going to work the same hours with the same pay.

One of my favorite and best teacher was a biology teacher, and I remember being taught about population cycles of various living things. I like how that teacher showed us humanity's population trends, and how it resembles boom and bust species. It was subtle, as if they knew it wouldn't stick with many of the students.

I think most people can see the rat race they are in, but for whatever various reasons, cannot or will not notice the incoming cliff fall. But, some of us stand taller, and can see the cliff fall coming. Stopping in the middle of humanity's stampede to warn everyone is going to be met with all sorts of problems, like being left behind, or being berated for slowing others down, or even violence if you create too much impact that impedes the flow of humanity. It's really awful to deal with seeing a horrible thing happening, care about it, and are not able to make a difference to obvert a tragedy you see coming.

To me, it takes almost no effort to just think the correct way, to voice the correct thing in pertinent moments. It's the holding of the tongue that takes effort when you realise the ears in the moment won't listen. You can learn about people quickly by saying some off hand comments and seeing their reaction. Most of the time, people are oblivious or react negatively hearing about the cliff. Pardon my French: Most people only care about themselves and their own shits, sometimes so much that they actively shove their heads up their own asses, purposely so they cannot see anything else other than their own shit. Sometimes you might find someone aligning to your views, but be careful of circumstantial situations, like the rat race hitting a road bump and everyome complains about it. Lots of people only cared about covid when it knock on their door step and infected the nonbelievers.

I could go on, but have to stop atm, but know that you are not alone and it's a struggle, like everything else in life, unfortunately.

Saying people don’t care undermines the good that millions of people in the world are doing. Stop using blanket statements and attributing to the whole- what only some are doing.

This only makes shit worse.

Sadly a lot of people just didn't care about anything unless it directly effects them. I feel for ya but remember to take care of yourself, friends and family first. Do the things you love. Oh and build some kind of solar device that saves you thousands. Your friend might listen then.