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How do you cope with the state of the world today? (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by raynethackery@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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Everything just seems so out of control. The US seems to be tearing itself apart. The world is on fire. We seem to be going backwards when it comes to freedom and human rights. We've turned our backs on each other. How do you cope with all this without just giving up?

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[-] Weslee@lemmy.world 70 points 9 months ago

Don't spend all your time reading news, they are purposely negative because it generates more interest and money, don't take everything you read as truth.

99% of these problems won't turn into anything other than a faded memory.

End of the day, nothing you can do will change what's happening half way across the world, so why let it change you?

[-] helmet91@lemmy.world 36 points 9 months ago

End of the day, nothing you can do will change what's happening half way across the world, so why let it change you?

I beg to differ. Here are a few things you can do. I agree these won't make an impact, but if enough people are willing to do these, it could work:

Donate money if you can afford it. (Just carefully check where you're exactly donating to.)
Promote non-propaganda, factual information. Muscovy spreads disinformation through social media and propaganda websites using their trolls. So why can't ordinary people step up and upvote, share, publish, and promote factual information? Sure, the algorithms of social media platforms favor the disinformation, but again, if enough people are willing to overcome what's happening, I believe, it could make a change.
Promote education. Only stupid people can be influenced by the far right propaganda. Unfortunately there are way too many stupid people.
Just do what you're good at. If your profession is irrelevant, that's fine. But if you happen to be a hacker, or want to become one, go ahead, and fight online scammers and trolls. Are you a software developer? Wanna be a web developer? Create something that has an impact if you have the free time and interest. Make it open source. Encourage others to join. Again, if you have no affinity for this kind of stuff, it's totally fine.
Do your research and vote on elections.

In my opinion, this kind of mindset of "you cannot do anything, get used to it" is a very demotivating and harmful piece of advice. Because that's what's been going on all this time; everyone being ignorant, while evil people never stop doing what they're doing.

[-] amio@kbin.social 4 points 9 months ago

So why can’t ordinary people step up and upvote, share, publish, and promote factual information?

They can, it just doesn't work terribly well. Persuading people is not necessarily about actual facts or rationality, even at the best of times, without even involving any strong feelings, or identifying with outcomes, or other interests of conflict.

Facing profit motives, politics, power dynamics, organized propaganda, and bad faith argumentation in general, it's even more grim. Russia and the other troll farmers are making a concerted specific effort out of this. The numbers, resources, and, sadly, human psychology, are on their side.

Making up some bullshit about 5G mRNA causing steel beams takes 10 seconds, maybe add another 5 for calling you a sheep once you rightly ask what the fuck whoever's been smoking. If you wanted to debunk the actual claim, you'd spend orders of magnitude more time and effort than they did, only for them to refuse to even glance at your arguments and studies. Assuming the entire belief isn't fake just to fuck with people, "facts and logic" certainly weren't involved in arriving at it, and are unlikely to budge the actual reason for that belief.

[-] paddirn@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

Also, a large part of it I’m assuming is driven by the upcoming US presidential election and a certain ongoing conflict in the world. There is at least one country that benefits from an increase in general chaos and uncertainty in the world. It divides Western military attention and increases discontent and anxiety in Western countries. Alot of our recent problems all lead back to Russia being a general force for chaos in the world, they stand to benefit the most from it.

[-] idunnololz@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Not just news but social media (yes that includes Lemmy). Generally anything that invokes some strong emotions will get up votes.

[-] amio@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

Lemmy is fairly shrilly political, but can be curated if you're willing to axe a lot of communities that shouldn't be political at a glance, but... still are. And some users with an axe to grind or chip on their shoulder.

this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024

130 points (89.6% liked)

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