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Why is everything shit?
(lemmy.world)
This is the bad place.
Oh no what the fork?
Care to spoon?
Not everything is shit. It's just not as good as it used to be
We used to be looking forward; those have always been the good times. Now, we either look backwards, or at the immediate. It's hard to be optimistic and drive in the right direction when you're constantly staring in the rear view mirror.
Also: corporations and governments learned a lot from Nazi Germany, and Goebbles in particular. Not in the usual Godwin's Law sense, but in how to manipulate the populous by controlling messaging. And they improved on it; rather than doing it through fiat, which breeds resistance, they've done it through good old Capitalism: the biggest media are owned by big concerns, and the messaging is controlled by editors.
There is free media, but that's a mixed bag. That gets you InfoWars and Rush Limbaugh, too.
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The correct answer is usually the most boring one.
We had a huge population of genuinely evil people who were locked away in the rural south so they could only abuse black people around them.
Then social media gave these people a voice and politicians realized they could pander to the trash with funding from the billionaires and that's enough to keep them in power indefinitely.
Maybe you’re depressed, maybe you’re looking in the wrong places for happiness, maybe you’re right, maybe something else…
everything's isn't; youre probably standing in a cespool and haven't taken a step in any direction to get out of it.
The decisions being made regarding how to deploy and operate the Internet appear, to me, to betray a fundamental lack of understanding regarding just how incredibly complex the information environment within a healthy society actually is, and how much people depend upon it to maintain the basic functions of human life.
It feels to me as though early man discovered fire and immediately decided to burn down every single forest they encountered so dangerous beasts wouldn't have anywhere to hide.
The attention economy largely works by finding problems, outrage, rage bait that can grab and hold your attention.
If you spend lots of time online your view of the world gets skewed by the attention machine.
Life is pretty good, people are nice, food is great. The community around you keeps on keeping on.
It was always shit. Now we just have technology that lets us see all of it.
There was always a genocide going on somewhere in the world. Cops always brutalized and killed people. The wealthy always exploited the poor. New diseases are always popping up and spreading. Politicians were always corrupt.
The internet tells us about all of it. We no longer have the bliss of ignorance.
If everything I see in the news all the time makes me feel like the world is shit, well that's just unhealthy.
So I've subscribed to some good news channels on YouTube, and I try to limit the amount of bad news that I digest.
Staying informed of what's going on in the world is great, but not if it comes at the price of your sanity.
So read some good news, write a list of things you're grateful for, take a walk in a park, meditate in the sun a bit, and remember that overall people are kind (free open source software exists, volunteering exists, food banks exist, etc).
It's not. You live in what is probably by most metrics the best time in human history.
If you read unceasingly-negative material, you could develop a negative worldview.
You live in what is probably by most metrics the best time in human history.
If you live in one of the rich countries. Otherwise it's shit and you're lucky to get a job picking the fruit that feeds those rich countries which pay almost nothing (still better then opportunities back home). Basically they're picking up the scraps left behind by us, who live in those rich countries and think things like "this is the best time to be alive in human history", completely ignoring all the human suffering that supports our lifestyles.
If you live in one of the rich countries.
Nah, I mean globally. Take your hypothetical fruit-growing country. Are things in 2025 in that country bad compared to 1925? 1825? 1725? 1625? If not now, when is the better time?
Either greed or hate, depends on the thing that is shit.
It's designed that way so that your work goes to others. That's the base of all of the world's problems.
Because the economic conditions of the modern world allow for tyranny and the people haven’t figured out that we need to unite and overthrow the tyrants to build a better society.
Greed and self interest.
Why do you delete your posts? Or is an admin/mod deleting them?
Shitposting.
Thank you. Thats helpful. I don't need to be someone's disposable foil. I'll just block them.
Money and greed.
But you can help. Grab a grocery bag, go out side and pick up some trash. Talk to your neighbors. Go put change in parking meters that are about to expire. Go through a parking lot and put shopping parts in the corral. Get a bag of frozen peas and feed some ducks (not bread). Get some cheap paper plates and a marker or two from a dollar store, make happy faces and staple them up on telephone poles.
The more we act hyper-locally, the better we can make it. Maybe it will inspire othdrs to do the same. But even if they don't, you're still making the world a better place.
Second this. Macro level things are.. not great. At home, our neighborhoods though, we can and do make a difference. Your friend group, your family, your close relations, those groups are the same as they were a year ago, and are worth being around. Yeah things are kind of shit right now. You can still go have a pint with your friends though. Or enjoy your favorite video game. Work on that hobby you've put off. We've been trained that buying is happiness - but you don't need to spend a lot of money to be content. There is nothing wrong with enjoying what you have and improving your own neighborhood.
People will tell us to hate, and to divide, and I just refuse to. I've been going out on walks, saying hello to the neighbors, going to the local coffee shop and bar. Communities are worth building.
I am of the personal opinion that life is a meat grinder, and we're the meat. A small percentage of people are born or become lucky enough to turn the crank or load the grinder, but most of us will suffer, and that's just the way it is because it has always been this way, for all of human history, and will presumably continue to be so. There is no why. There just is.
Because of the collapse of the USSR. It was the only thing scaring capitalists into giving something to the people.
because you're old
Whats not old?
when do you remember things being good?
Probably when I was a kid, lol. But really, I would say any time before covid was a lot better. Even just like, 1.5 ago was still better. I feel like everything is just getting exponentially worse.
yea that's true
this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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