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submitted 1 month ago by aka@slrpnk.net to c/solarpunk@slrpnk.net

The reality is setting in that people simply do not care about making the world a better place. It is breaking my heart, and I do not know how to reconcile my thoughts. I'm sorry to be such a downer here but I don't know where else to share.

Perhaps the climate catastrophe, human suffering, and inequality is so large and so much out of people's hands that even people who care have come to a state of learned helplessness. 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. To a certain extent, I can't blame him, because a lot of people just work to survive.

I want to make the world a better place. A world where people have all there basic needs met, live in balance with nature, and have a right to self determination. A world where humanity strives to be the best version of itself. I can't help but get sad or frustrated when I see something wrong. I can't help but feel like I'm a downer to my friends when I point these things out. They don't disagree with me, but it just seems like a depressing topic. People seem generally content to live their normal lives. In the same way, I can't blame them. It won't build a better future, but they deserve to be happy.

Maybe my coworkers are right, and that I'm too naïve. Maybe my friends are right, and that I'm too empathetic for my own good. I am envious that they can turn off the thing in their head that worries, or wants to make things better, and that they can just enjoy life. A more utopian future is generations away, or maybe never. If I can't effect change, maybe I should find an outlet, or stop caring, or something. idk, sorry for yapping. if you're reading this i hope you have a good day

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[-] MourningDove@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] BigTrout75@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago

When I was a kid I really thought the leisure society will happen. Now I'm simply counting down the years to death.

[-] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago

Just do what you can do to make things better for people. It'll drive you crazy if you're worrying about what other people are doing. Even crazier than that if you want a reward for doing things right. Do the right thing (even if no one else is) simply because it's the right thing to do.

Serenity is to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

[-] mistermodal@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

You're not more empathetic than other people, you have an ideology built around what you perceive as your class interest, just like them

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It can often take empathy to be able to even see or care beyond oneself and towards a bigger picture. An unemphatic person could, and often does, simply reject an ideology that may not place their own wants or desires above that of others, even if they are in the same class as those who would benefit from such an ideology.

An average right-wing libertarian is often not terribly wealthy and works for a living, putting them in the working class, but they may find Ayn Rand's flavor of selfish ancap/libertarianism appealing due to a lack of empathy, even if practically it does not improve their circumstances.

[-] MattW03@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago

People are simply shutting down their head. If you can't see it, it doesn't exist.

[-] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] bagsy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago

Disagree.

Most people want to make the world a better place, we just can't agree on what a better world would look like, and how to get there.

There's a lot of people out there, for example, who think that the "right to self determination" is a bad thing because they believe humanity has an intrinsic self-destructive aspect. I disagree, but they firmly believe that a dictatorship is the solution and I'm being unhelpful because I don't want that.

One of the hardest things I've been through in therapy was realizing that my parents really did think they were doing the right thing. They listened to the "experts" at church who told them that in order to protect their kids, they needed to hurt their kids. My mother dropped out of college when she got pregnant, and my stepdad is mentally ill, so neither of them were particularly well educated, and they landed in a cult.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, after all. People can be horrible and think they're doing it for the greater good.

[-] aka@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago

Writing "self determination" was inspired from this in-progress book of speculative fiction I'm currently reading called "A Visitor to the Future"

https://www.chronohawk.com/a-visitor-to-the-future/

In the book society has two main rules. The right to self determination, and that people do not have the right to impede on other's right to self determination. All other rules stem from these two main ones. I find the book very hopeful about the future.

[-] faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 month ago

Yeah, my point is that one person's utopia can be another person's dystopia. Everybody wants to live in a better place, but nobody agrees on what "better" actually means.

Some people crave structure and order, and don't want to lose that in favor of increased self-determination. Others see structure and order as constraining and chafing, and see increased self-determination at any cost as freeing.

Quite a lot of people also have a hard time viewing things long-term. IDK where you're at, but a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck here, and I think they're stuck in short-term thinking as a form of survival.

Like I grew up poor poor, with shitty parents to boot, where you have so little self-determination that you just straight up learn that making plans only leads to disappointment. Long-term planning is a skill, and when kids grow up with parents that raid the piggy bank for beer money, they learn that planning is useless and spending all your pocket change on candy is better.

[-] Donk@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 month ago

one man's utopia is another's dystopia This is true, but there are universal goods that anyone who isn't antisocial can agree on like a livable climate, everyone having food, shelter, and safety. At least I choose to believe that. I get the point about parents and long-term thinking. That's a whole thing, they are making it so hard to just live that you're so busy and tired just doing the daily struggle lots of people don't have time to think or plan or organize.

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this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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