It feels all but certain that I won’t be able to enjoy a prosperous life or get to retire. All of the wealth is going straight to the top. All of the opportunities to move up in the world are being rug-pulled. All of the federal agencies that help keep us safe and healthy are gone. The social safety net is getting flushed down the toilet. We will live in disease and squalor, and the most vulnerable of us will die.
Because I dared to not be a sociopath, I and anyone else who voted for sanity will be deemed enemies of the state and hunted down - which won’t be hard, because it would be trivial to build the most robust surveillance state in human history if it doesn’t exist already.
I myself have disabilities (which I don’t think qualify for benefits) that make it hard, but not impossible, to find a job. The problem is that I just can’t bring myself to do it because I don’t get what the fucking point is anymore. I have to work so hard to get out of this rut just for some fascist fuck to kill me or toss me into a torture facility before I can even experience life on my own.
Have you been in a similar headspace and were able to escape it? If so, what snapped you out of it?
Log out of social media, go outside, interact with real people. Life is not remotely as bad as all that, it just seems that way because social media has told you to be scared. Humans are extremely adaptable, we will overcome whatever the problems are.
This needs to be an auto comment on every post in Lemmy.
Frankly, in my experience the social media has been unreasonably optimistic
Most of the struggles and worries come from real-life expriences
Humans are extremely adaptable, we will overcome whatever the problems are.
Many die so others get to live. I am sure the dead ones are happy for you🤡
Honestly, it sounds like you’ve been spending too much time in some online communities that are doom posting about everything. Do things suck right now? Yes, but they’ve literally sucked for as long as human society has existed. Things can always be better, or always be worse. However you can’t just sit around passively waiting for the times to change, or your life will suck.
The single biggest factor in whether your life is good or not is you and your actions. Don’t let things outside of your control convince you to give up. Do the best with what you have, and I promise you that you can find fulfillment and happiness in the life available to you.
Honestly, it sounds like you’ve been spending too much time in some online communities that are doom posting about everything. Do things suck right now? Yes, but they’ve literally sucked for as long as human society has existed.
Ah. I was worried for a second he may have been stuck in places that are only pessimistic doom posting. Good to know that life sucks now, and has always sucked. That’s the positive message we need right now.
Either that or a god damned pitchfork…
Yeah… it feels like what my mother used to say when I was a kid. “People have it worse than you in <insert country here>.” Like okay, things suck and have always sucked. Doesn’t really nullify his feelings though that they suck right now and they’re having a hard time. Just feels kinda dismissive. The rest of it is fine but that part just bugs me.
It’s contextualizing, things suck, that’s real and gets acknowledged, not dismissed, they can suck more and probably do for other people, this is also real. It doesn’t make the suck you are experiencing magically better but it does put into a wider context and helps to show that you, likely, aren’t at rock bottom without any hope. Your actions and headspace matter. They won’t magically make everything great, but they can easily be the difference between bad and legitimately “ok” or better.
You’re right, I’ve definitely been doomscrolling way too much.
I think the biggest thing holding me back is the idea that it is too late to do anything because my life could effectively be over in less than a few months. I see lots of people dooming about fascist purges and the end of societal function and think, “Well, how do I know for sure that they’re wrong? I don’t know enough about society to make a solid prediction either way.”
And so my brain thinks “There is a reasonable chance that my life is over (or at least the ladder to make any life progress gets pulled up) in a few months. If everything I do is all for naught, then why bother?” It’s a belief that I have no long-term agency.
I think that in order to move forward, I have to disprove the idea of me being targeted in a fascist purge and complete economic collapse happening anytime soon with reasonable certainty. Are those sound predictions, or are they just nightmares dreamt up by a bunch of armchair historian doomers exaggerating how quickly these things happen? Is the theory that the “day one mass deportations” include all known political dissidents actually possible, or are the logistics too insane to work? That’s what I have to figure out, or else I will likely continue to believe that I am helpless.
In other words, I think it’s quite plausible that I’m reading misinformation, but the fact that I don’t know it for sure is preventing me from dismissing it outright.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply!
I recommend the It Could Happen Here podcasts from after election day. I’m not caught up, but the three I listened to acknowledge the terror of the situation we’re in while also trying to put things like mass deportation in context. It’s going to be so unbelievably expensive. So no I don’t think dissidents like you or myself are on the list, yet.
First off, let me say that I see a close to zero chance that society will collapse in a matter of months or that there will be mobs out to kill disabled people.
America has reached a turning point and is certainly starting to spiral, but these kinds of radical changes you’re talking about take a long time to happen. People revolt violently when they can no longer afford bread, and the US is nowhere close to that.
Quality of life is declining, job opportunities are diminishing, but America is so far away from bread lines that it’s just not going to happen in the short term. Remember the elites DON’T WANT social collapse. That’s very bad for business! They will gamble with our future and with the prosperity of the country for a little more over and over, but they want to keep the system up and held together with duct tape as long as possible or their profits fall too.
So yes, there is real turmoil, but nothing is coming to an end tomorrow, next month, or next year. Keep educating yourself, but stay positive and do what you can to enact change.
Just my 2 cents, but the logistics part is substantial. Our jails and prisons are already overflowing (with the highest incarceration rate of the global north) so there’s no quick process that is feasible. We should have plenty of warning as to what’s coming down the works… as for having the means and ability to do anything about it? We shall see.
You’re not helpless unless you don’t take action. Build your community and celebrate the small wins. Find meaningful work(even volunteering) and build more connections to others. Having some of that to fall back on has kept me saner lately, and now I’m driven to focus more on that, least for the short term.
Consider the fact that you can change your life slowly with concerted effort. It helps me!
Yeah this is catastophizing. Sure it’s bad. Does it mean certain death? No. Is it the quest country to live in? Certainly not. Just stay focused. Find the best job you can, and don’t be a slave to them. It’s business, not family. You’ll make it through. While you’re making some money and have some mental and financial bandwidth, think about your next move. Be patient and try not to panic. It’s going to be okay in the long term.
People think that problems shouldn’t exist, and that the authorities should have fixed it, and it’s killing their motivation to live.
There is no authority. There is how you want to live your life, and who you want to be. We are in the anarchy. You live your live according to your principles, and that works for you or doesn’t. We all want and can sometimes even have a nice situation, but underneath it, nature is metal - and we haven’t “grown out of it”.
However there definitively have been times that were better before they got much worse, and I’d argue that today is one of those times
On big difference today has compared to, say, 10 years ago, is that 10 years ago there was much more hope for… well… hope. Today? Well, things are going to get much worse before they get better, if they ever do.
There is nothing that says the future must always get better just because historically it for the most part have. Sometimes the most rational thing to do is to indeed prepare for the possibility that things will get much worse. Otherwise you end up with a situation like how people today wonder why more Jews didn’t move out from pre-war germany
The amounts of copium in this thread are extinction-level.
Everything you just said is 100% valid and you are simply correct.
The thing is, it’s not a measure of a healthy mind to thrive in a profoundly sick society where the worst of the worst have won long ago.
There’s this thing called depressive realism which posits that depressed people, by and large, perceive reality much closer to how it really is than neurotypical people.
Essentially, “normal” people have an (innate or learned) positivity bias. Which is usually a good thing. People like us are the outliers.
But positivity bias in a world where it’s actually harmful is another thing. The majority of people are walking headlong into their own extinction while going “Ehh, it’s not so bad”, while we should ALL be positively irate and picketing the homes (not companies) of our owner class 24/7.
But it hasn’t happened yet and at this point I don’t know how bad things need to get before people realize what’s going on.
As long as people have something to entertain themselves and something to eat, nothing will change. Even the Ancient Romans knew that: “Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.”.
Ah so that’s why bread and games increases loyalism in Civ6 ;)
Mass starvation is historically the usual trigger for revolution. Not always though.
Only those that understand a problem even have a chance to solve it. Those who refuse to understand a problem (often for comfort) are not helpful at best, but usually actively harmful.
The problem of suffering runs far deeper than “Rich vs Poor”. We are all trapped inside constantly decaying bodies that are barely capable of survival. This constant decay leads to almost constant pain even billionaires can not avoid. And then there is our anxious brain worrying about all sorts of things that might or might not happen. Yes, all of this is more bearable inside a villa than inside a tent, but it is still abhorrent. This does not mean the “Rich vs Poor” struggle is not worth while. It is, because there is tremendous preventable suffering within this struggle. This struggle, however, is just a tiny fraction of the problem that is called the human condition.
To those who seek to understand the problem of suffering, i can recommend this video. It eases you into the horror of being alive.
TL;DR: The following is going to be dark and harsh but it all comes down to one thing. Life doesn’t get better, you get better at dealing with shit. Hang in there.
You need to disconnect and find a way to focus on you.
It feels like the entire system is a scam and it’s pointless to even try.
It has always been a game where the only way to win is to cheat. Always.
It feels all but certain that I won’t be able to enjoy a prosperous life or get to retire.
The system is not setup with rest (retirement) as its main goal. The system is setup for you to play until you die. Even if you hoard more money than you and your descendants could possibly spend in a hundred years, you would likely still want to play, because you are winning. If your end goal is mere prosperity and retirement, then you should prepare to be under the boot and a slave until you die.
All of the wealth is going straight to the top.
Always has been the case. It hasn’t stopped people from finding a way.
All of the opportunities to move up in the world are being rug-pulled.
This has always been the case. You have to make your own opportunities and expect others to drag you down. We are all crabs in a bucket.
All of the federal agencies that help keep us safe and healthy are gone. The social safety net is getting flushed down the toilet.
Fantasy. These things has never existed in this country. At best, FDR gave us a yoga mat to land on when we fall off a cliff, where before it was a bed of nails. Fall hard enough in this country and you will get wrecked no matter what. It has always been that way.
We will live in disease and squalor, and the most vulnerable of us will die.
Same as it ever was.
Because I dared to not be a sociopath, I and anyone else who voted for sanity will be deemed enemies of the state and hunted down - which won’t be hard, because it would be trivial to build the most robust surveillance state in human history if it doesn’t exist already.
Take a breath. Here is a truth that will sound harsh but it is meant as a kindness. You do not matter. Just about nobody knows you exist. Nobody is coming to get you. This fact applies to almost everyone.
Since all we can do is live the life we perceive with the meat in our skull, we tend to see ourselves as the main character in the story of life. We’re not. We barely qualify for NPC status.
I myself have disabilities (which I don’t think qualify for benefits) that make it hard, but not impossible, to find a job.
That’s a problem, I am sorry. All problems have a solution, but one unlikely to be found here, with Internet strangers.
The problem is that I just can’t bring myself to do it because I don’t get what the fucking point is anymore. I have to work so hard to get out of this rut just for some fascist fuck to kill me or toss me into a torture facility before I can even experience life on my own.
Again. Breathe homie. That’s not going to happen.
Have you been in a similar headspace and were able to escape it?
100%…often. I have lived with chronic, sometimes crippling, depression and fairly severe PTSD since 1989. Long story short, a lot of trauma broke my brain. Combo that with ADHD, borderline personality disorder, heart disease and cancer, and we are living the life baby! Still, I have been able survive and rise from poverty to wealth without hurting too many people…I hope.
If so, what snapped you out of it?
Nothing did. I just kept getting up out of spite and contempt for this life. As time went on, i got used to it. The bullshit bothered me less until it just became background noise. A nuisance from time to time.
you do not matter
You have no idea how much I needed to hear that right now
Wonderful response, and I agree completely. It echoes the thoughts I’ve tried to convey to friends in their 20s, but much more eloquently than I have managed.
you unironically just have to cope with it in whatever way makes sense to you
I personally think of my career as: “some things I do are interesting and keep me from blowing my brains out, the rest I don’t care about”
when it comes to the company I work for: I treat everyone I meet well, no corporate bs, no yes sir yes ma’am. I do whatever I’m assigned and meet deadlines
but I never go above and beyond (because of burnout)
everything you’ve thought about hard work = reward or better pay is a scam
put everything into work-life balance and when you go home focus on things you really want to do, such as hobbies or hang outs
don’t do unpaid overtime, don’t bend over for anyone, don’t offer yourself up when shit goes down
you want to be as invisible as possible while not burning out AND not working your ass off (everyone has different standards for what this means)
tldr: just find some way to cope because there isn’t really anything else you can do
TL; DR Get in on the scam.
Pick something you like to do, or have a talent for, and plan a path to make money from it. You may still have to work for someone else initially, to develop skills and get experience, but it will be better than doing a shit job only for money.
Research what resources there are to support your startup. Even in places where there is no help from government or anything else for individuals, you will find they want to support business.
Especially if you have extra challenges, if you get good, they will make a narrative around your success and promote you as an example.
Maybe try to find a small business you care about or interests you? I own a small business. It’s me, my wife, my sister-in-law and two friends I made in the industry. We all get paid $16/hr. We got to create the environment we wanted to work in. Its a lot of work but we’re happy and feel more free than we would elsewhere.
I know I’m coming from a point of privilege writing this but I like to think we’re all on equal footing at my place and we’re doing our best to grow together rather than making me rich. I’ve worked for a lot of small businesses as well and they often have more respect for skills and individuals - not all - but a lot. If you find a place you like or even love it can become like a second home.
God I miss my job.
More than 20 years of peace and I took it for granted. When the boss started talking about selling the place I thought, “Who would buy this outdated hole in the ground that makes no real money and is surrounded by competition?”
What bums me out the most though is that when I was 16 he said, “Come work for me. In 10 years I intend to retire and I’ll lease one of these places out to you and you’ll take over when I die.”
I knew it wasn’t happening at the 11 year mark.
Don’t be loyal. Jump around. Don’t throw your life and time away. Everyone I know who has ever made any money did so by selling their skills to the highest bidder.
I helped someone else get everything they ever wanted and I got nothing but promises.
Don’t do that. Seriously.
(I should have made this its own comment but yours is the one that moved me to write it. The speech is directed mostly at OP and anyone else who stumbles onto it.)
Get offline, and simplify. Start doing things that are good for you. There is yet joy to come.
If I want things, I need money and the only way to get money without practically committing any financial crime that there is, it’s to work for it. Quite frankly, it’s unhealthy to be bathing yourself with this mentality of dreading the reality of the matter. I won’t disagree that it sucks, but there has to be other directions out there for you than just that.
But I do suspect the reason you’re feeling this way is because of you mentioning disabilities and I can’t imagine the kind of world you’re in where, it seems like there’s a layer of disrespect towards the disabled when it comes to work.
You should be worrying about getting paid first… Work is just a way to get to get paid.
100 percent agree. Always fight for pay, not for rhe company trying to pay you less.
I have no answer for you. Really, there is no point. Hopefully enough people give up on the system that it crashes and we can start over.
If everybody gives up on the system we fought to build with protections for workers and public goods everyone can use, then starting over will just cause more death and suffering.
People love to romanticize accelerationism until the civil war start and they begin starving.
Just like middle aged doomsday preppers except its soviet flavored and encouraged by foreign psy-ops.
I work to have money for shelter and food and, just as importantly, some spending money for hobbies and travel. The freedom to be able to drive basically anywhere any time is a great thing to have.
The inequalities today are large but also the standard of living for even the lower class is probably higher than any other time in history. You can go your entire life without holding a shovel or hammer or piece of firewood Imagine instead having to build your own house, grow your own food, and cut firewood to stay warm. Things aren’t so bad.
For a while there I was a homeless alcoholic. Now I’m an alcoholic. Given the choice between the two I know which I’d rather.
Get a STEM degree and move to a country that respects its citizens.
As someone that spent half their life very poor, I always take offense with the “just move” answer. Many people, if not most, in the US cannot afford to emigrate. It is also very likely that OP or someone else in their situation, cannot afford to get a STEM degree.
My sincere apologies for trying to be helpful.
Or other degree that’s also useful, including social work or the arts.
The arts lol? Nothing but debt.
Supply and demand. There’s less people in STEM so they get paid more.
After telling a generation of kids to get stem degrees or they’ll be doomed to flip burgers, I feel I have the responsibility to say this is no longer the case. The jobs still pay well but; between ghost job listings, recent layoffs, and every entry level job wanting like 4 years of hyper specific experience; I have observed it being nearly impossible to enter the job market or move around it right now, and the whole thing feels very oversaturated.
Unless you’re willing to build bombs. Don’t know much about that end of it cause I’m not interested in developing things intended to kill people. but that’s where the money is if that’s what you’re about.
Nah. Money is not in military contracting at all.
That’s news to me
No, bombs and the defence industry was not was I was on about. I see your point. Yes there’s been some downturn recently, but the tech industry has always been cyclical. It’s difficult to get hired today, and there’s certainly favoritism towards senior employees.
My point was simply about economics; supply and demand. In my university, about half of all degrees issued are in the arts. If employers want someone with that kind of training, then they have all of the selection in the world. Compare this to a tech company. If a tech company wants to expand their business and they need to implement a technology to do that, depending on what technology it is, there might be like, 1k… maybe 100k, maybe 1M people on the planet that have that specialty? Employers are going to pay a lot more for a person with that kind of training.
I wasn’t implying you were talking about defense, I was just saying that if you’re only about money then you can make a lot of it developing weapons for the government.
Different universities specialize in different things. I went to an engineering university that issued mostly engineering degrees, plus a few business degrees. Both of my state’s public universities also have fairly large colleges of engineering with quite a few engineering programs run by them. You’re also not only competing locally, but with remote, outsource and H1B visa workers. There is plenty of supply.
God forbid you have to train an employee in the specialization you’re looking for once in a while.
Naive old advice. You are about one generation too late for this to be relevant.
Lol fuck you, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
It is a scam, but we need to eat and have a roof over our heads. So you have to find something that you can tolerate and try to get paid as much as you can for as little time as you can give. This is the game we are in. Unfortunately in the current system money talks, it is not fair but that is how it is.
