Behavioral standards plummeted during the pandemic and never recovered. People are a lot more stressed, and they refuse to behave. We're divided, and it really does not help that our leadership literally believes that AI is going to replace most jobs.
I do not think the leaders believe that AI is going to replace most jobs. They definitely believe that they can use the threat of AI taking most jobs to further exploit the working class.
They really do though. Like, you're assuming a level of rationality that they don't possess.
Americans really struggle to come to terms with their elites and leaders being fucking evil instead of merely stupid.
Jesus christ, look at your fucking history. Evil doesn't always look like some hollywood ass villain.
After a certain point it doesn't matrer, but still come ON
Yeah that's mostly a justification for layoffs. They're not competitive robotics manufacturing AI that cuts down the need for enormous chunks of capital for factory floor space + varied equipment + switching things up to change what you're producing. They're not competitive on the large computational engineering models important for R&D (which they're not doing either) and iterating new rocket engines. It's a giant grift, but people need to be careful not to universalize the values of Silicon Valley AI companies.
These billionaire dipshits are not as bright as you think
How are the schools
Hectic and our teachers are constantly complaining about how kids can’t do basic reading comprehension tasks. Like copy a sentence from the board into their notebook and then repeat it back to you in their own words. There are 13 year olds who cannot do this. There are adults who can’t do this. The majority of Americans read at or below the level of an 11 year old.
I live in a rural area in the US. Public school teachers are generally very good at their jobs, but a lot of the school boards around me have been taken over by the far right and so-called conservatives. They run on platforms like "ending forced vaccines for children" and banning transgender flags and they mostly win because there's a lot of dumb racists here.
In fucking shambles. One of my dreams, if I ever win big on the rarely purchased lotto tickets, is to open a free clinic with free pharmacy, and a private, means-tested Pre-K12 Montessori school that only accepts on the poorest first and donations only buy your name on a plaque.
Where I am (major metro) the schools are still decent but severely underfunded.
Mostly okay. Slow discussion building on why test scores are dropping and are they still dropping. Is it COVID (immeidate shock), Long COVID (long term health issues), or nearly all course work and books being on tiny laptop screens (money showed up for a wholesale transfer to Chromebooks during COVID. They were actually helpful during lock-downs, but were kept after.).
Seconding this. We're in freefall right now.
Depends on the person. I’m a therapist, tons of my clients are very upset, scared, crying, having trouble sleeping, depressed, feeling powerless and angry, etc.
This administration’s actions are taking a huge toll on some people’s mental health.
And people who are trans or gay? They are scared and many want to get out but can’t.
Having said all that… there are plenty of people who are not bothered because they are not informed and don’t realize how bad things really are.
The average American barely has any idea there's a war even happening or who the president is. Half the people I know think Biden is still president. Even people who do know there's a war wouldn't be able to find Iran on a map. Everything about our government and everything it does might as well be a TV show to my fellow Americans. They see it as fiction that doesn't impact our lives and most people think it's extremely boring so they tune it out.
People are crashing out but for different but associated reasons. Everyone's broke, no one can afford healthcare, there's a mass shooting every 3 days. Everyone's tired and the alienation is so thick that people are all pointing in different directions to where they think the problem is. People are getting more conspiracy brained and twitchy.
Americans are deep fried in every sense
Even people who do know there's a war wouldn't be able to find Iran on a map.
I work a customer service facing job at the poop factory. The only person I've ever heard mention the war is one overly chatty customer who asked me "so did you hear we're in another war now?" with the same cadence as "did you catch the big game last night?"
I've noticed that stress is beginning to show in society. When you order groceries, much of the order is wrong. People are using employee assistance programs in certain cases for stress related issues. Many of my friends can't stand to watch the news. I'm fucked in the head from doom scrolling. I know a person who had a party recently and said the only thing she wanted for her bday was for nobody to bring up politics. It's awful honestly and I'm crashing out. My health is impacted. Like, a lot.
It's invalidating that some don't see all this.
Delete social media, seriously, it's a cancer that eats your soul.
I deleted every social media outside of Lemmy and my mental health drastically improved. I only pick up my phone to message my spouse or friends to make plans.
Disconnect from the race, your brain will thank you.
People in the U.S used to say.
"Finish your dinner , there are kids in Africa/China starving. "
Now it's our kids going without food.
They used to say
"we have to liberate religious fanatic dictatorships of other countries"
Now we hope someone liberates us from fanatic fascist dictators.
"We are the richest country"
Poverty is high and climbing every minute.
Children are illiterate. No one can afford basic healthcare and die from preventable diseases. Lose everything they own and become homeless from cancer or a serious injury.
Sex trafficking. That used to be other countries right?
Nope. It was here. It was always this place.
It's been rotting for a while. Causes have effects. Some people don't seem capable of actually following the path to see the outcomes. And the few who can are often ignored.
Even my other leftist friends thought I was being dramatic this time last year.
I couldn't get them to engage much. Now they call me, sobbing. Overwhelmed. It was all real. It was all true. It's all over for us. We can't come back from this without a lot more hardship.
I think people still haven't accepted that last one.
Our children can't even read. You think we are going to bounce back from this in 5 or 10 years?
No one will trust the U.S for anything.
Right now they are all working to stop using the dollar as the main exchange currency. Many are working on their own tech so they don't have to use our corrupt tech.
Hell some country in Africa has their own Internet now that's not accessible to outsiders because they are sick of the manipulation.
It's over. And we , the citizens, will be paying for decades.
None of this will be fixed any time soon. I know no one wants to hear that. But it's true.
Go ahead and make your peace with it. And then be ready to fight and try your hardest to support each other.
We only have each other.
I was fired a month or so after the intentional stock market crash. Jobs are no longer existent, likely to be worse than 2008. Most of us can't afford a home let alone rent for an apartment. Medication is expensive even with insurance, and that's assuming you can even obtain it as the fda/dea are in some sort war causing shortages. Our government is killing people. Our friends are being put on lists/into databases for being queer. Our government is threatening our allies, resulting in them hating us further inhibiting our ability to get assistance and or leave. Concentration camps are being built. Drones are being tested around the country along with mass deployment of facial recognition cameras. Data centers are sucking up the water. All of our data was looted by foreign connected individuals posing as government waste reduction. They're attempting to get rid of physical cash by removing production of the penny. Age verification laws are being baked into everything we love in an effort for additional surveillance. We've been infiltrated by Russia and Israel. We're being dragged into another oil war even though many of us witnessed the effects of the previous one on our friends and family. They're rolling back women's rights. Pedophile billionaires are wrapped up in all this. And it seems anyone who could have done anything in their positions have failed us. So yes, I'd say that's the definition of crashing out.
People rarely distinguish between the sentiment of a demographic versus the sentiment of the individuals that make up that demographic. Hence, stereotypes.
"Americans" are not a monolith. There's almost 400 million people in this country. Idk how each individual is doing, but most of the people I know are too busy trying to keep their heads financially above water to care. The actual American people have very little say over what happens in this country, and most are just as trapped in the horror as the rest of the world.
Does a country without public transit, universal healthcare, or any social safety nets sound like a country where the average person is in control to you?
The ‘background noise’ is getting louder but for the most part, people are just carrying about their day worried about their own personal lives
Things are bad, and are going to get a lot worse before it's over.
I'm self-employed, and 2025 had one of my best starts in 18 years of business. 2026 is one of the worst starts in my history. January can be hit if miss, but February is usually pretty good, and March is always one of my best months. Tomorrow is the last job on my schedule, and I have nothing beyond that until the Fall. I'm talking to other small biz owners, and they're saying the same thing.
Economic indicators always lag by a few months, so the rest of the world is going to find out in a couple months what those in the trenches, like me, already know - we're already in a really bad economic situation.
And it won't get better until somebody in power starts admitting it, and committing to fix it. I don't see that happening anytime soon.
There have been many organized protests against Trump since he took office. I'm not sure how much press they've received outside the US. Though many still support him because they are indoctrinated into the MAGA cult, I would say that most (over half) of Americans are against the war for a variety of reasons.
The problem is that there is not much we can do in the short term to create change. Our system of government does not have an effective means to recall a leader.
The threat of legal action does little to deter this administration. For one thing, it's slow. For another, they've shown that they can and will ignore court orders and this far don't suffer any consequences. Finally, the administration has done as much as possible to install loyalists and remove honest people in every part of government, including the legal system.
Impeachment is a joke. Even if the process was started again, Republicans in the Senate would never convict one of their own.
So the average citizen doesn't approve of what is happening but don't see any effective means to change. It's a very helpless feeling. Many disgruntled communities have been able to create some change in their local government but even changing political parties is not real change. We still have 2 right wing parties bought by special interests. I think many of us just try to do good where we can in our own sphere of influence.
Look at American history. This really is business as usual, sad as it might be.
I just recently got a bunch of medical stuff and psychiatric stuff sorted out after decades of barely being able to function. So I’m finally feeling “normal” and the state of our politics has me stressed to the point of action, but not to the point of curling up in a ball and doing nothing, which is unusual for me. Very surreal to be functional in a nonfunctional world.
The oil prices have not hit the average consumer hard yet. They are releasing oil reserves and taking other measures to artificially reduce the price increase. It will probably take a month or two before things really starts to go down. (or up in this case)
Things are not normal. It is like a lot of people are waiting for the next shoe to drop.
Resistance is legal, so long as it does not go "too far". I am near an "ICE" city. When empty cars with cut seat belts started showing up, there was an added level of horror film unease. The kidnapping by random "not ICE" didn't amount to much, though we have yet to truly know who was kidnapped by "not ICE" (likely few). The murders have on not been good, but are at least fairly public.
No one is arming, as a shooting war on American soil will get everyone killed. There were days I wondered if we would be bombed. So far the "keep calm, and resist." Crowd is making progress, which helps keep tensions from boiling over.
Elections are coming up, which is providing an outlet for energy. Real voting won't be until November, and zero changes will happen until January 2027. Expect crazy shit to ramp up.
America is huge though. For any trend in one location, the opposite is happening elsewhere.
This is a very good time for the privileged to take a "mini-vacation". It both slows production and gives one a chance to enjoy their last days on Earth.
I'm sure some people are. But constantly crashing out isn't useful even in the worst situations. What is useful is taking real steps that have real effects. Action is the antidote for anxiety.
I keep it together because a lot of young people are around me. But on the inside I’ve kind of given up on anything good and dread the next fucking crazy thing to come up.
The reality is none of this insanity has directly effected me. So day to day life, working, raising kids, etc. is completely normal for me. However, keeping up with news. Feeling empathy for people being effected now, and worrying about when the other shoe is going to drop on me and my family stresses me out. I don't like being stressed out and avoid stress as much as possible, so I find myself just trying to stay distracted with hobbies, video games, etc. Then I feel guilty about distracting myself. If I can't do much about the situation, I should at least inform myself about it. But then there comes the stress again...
So yeah, in a way add me to the crashing out list I guess.
At this point, many of us are numb to the impending whatever. There is always 6 things happening that shouldn't be happening (that we know about) and that could upend our lives. And usually there is very little we can do besides yell on the internet.
I have a "conservative" friend. We both had a bit of a crashout discussion last night. We're American.
The economy is crashing in front of our eyes. We're both extremely privileged and lucky and we both recognize it and we recognize how fucking stupid everything is in our society. We recognize we're powerless to even change the nature of our jobs.
If crying most days is crashing out, then yes.
Trying to conduct my day as normal (food needs buying and bills need to be paid, after all), but with a marked increase of episodes of staring of into space internally shrieking as avenues of opportunity and life plans made years ago are irrevocably altered.
What's the alternative? Give up? That doesn't help anyone.
Am American/USian/Yankee what does "crashing out" mean?
Side topic:
ls "normalburger" a word commonly used in English?
If so, what does it mean (I assume it does not refer to grilled beef patties?)
My English dictionary draws a blank here...
Maybe it's a regional thing, but I don't think it's a common phrase. I've heard "nothing-burger" a lot, and this may be someone playing off that.
No, I think the expression it plays off of is “nothing-burger” which is more common. Like, when everyone is expecting a very bad or very good thing to happen and nothing comes of it: “Well, that was a big nothing-burger” … that and leftist online discourse calling the US “burgerland” or the burger-reich
I am not worried about the war, the only affect it has on me is that gas prices have gone up.
I am worried about the fact that Hegseth has managed to replace the entire command structure with cristofacists that believe they are going to initiate armageddon.
I am worried about what those commanders will do when it comes time for this administration to step down.
I am also very worried about how many people I know who cannot find work and are unable to pay their mounting debts. I've been helping a friend pay for her cell phone bill while she tries to get a new job. I have multiple friends who cannot even get minimum wage jobs because they are "over qualified".
I am worried about how much damage and harm the AI industry is doing to our entire fucking society.
The war in Iran is nothing compared to all of this.
I'm an extremely privileged hedonistic inner city party queer. This shit weighs so heavily on me I'm consumed with visions of war whenever I go out to have fun now.
Tripping mushrooms at the beach unable to escape horrible visions of the cruel calculus of war. The anger and shortages spilling into violence, famine, and fleeing your home, the way hunger and exhaustion will beat you down long before a gun is ever in your face. Occult dance party the night after the war started, could barely dance or enjoy myself just weighed down by the war, as was my wife, so we left very early.
Asking other people who were around me at the dance party, on the beach, other recent concerts, no one else was that bothered by the war, it wasn't something anyone had put much thought into.
I live very close to where the Battle of Atlanta started in the Civil War. It's been 150+ years since this land and its people actually knew war. Sure there are soldiers overseas but that's exactly it, overseas, out of sight out of mind. By and large I don't think most Americans comprehend in the slightest what war is. A lot of us grew up in the Global War on Terror where aside from the toxic political discourse a persistent state of war really didn't feel all that much different than peace felt before.
A lot of Americans have also wised up to the idea that we fight forever wars, to a lot of people they can't even keep up with when the fighting has started or stopped, just this vague awareness there are constant military actions happening in the backgound. So when they hear about all this with Iran it's just another drop in the bucket of forever wars, something they have become desensitized to after decades of the Bush's, Obama's, and Clinton's killing sprees around the world. So much murder not only can they not keep up they just tune out.
So in conclusion I think America has fully internalized the Orwellian mantra War Is Peace. They just can't tell the difference anymore not that they would've cared much about Iran back when they could.
Americans acting normal as fuck. People were crashing out 10x harder when the invasion of Ukraine started in 2022
I am, definitely struggling to give a single fuck about anything not associated with my immediate survival. I’ve been expecting things to get really bad for a long time, i didn’t expect it would be this fucking stupid and irritating
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